Please, Jazzy.

Today or tomorrow. Preferably today. I promise you treats of hot soy meal mash and molasses, and neck scritchies, and the best hay we have. Please lamb when it's convenient for me ;-).

(I'm substitute teaching at Sonrise FULL DAY on Friday. There will be no one here, and this is Jasmine's first time. I suspect, being a 4H lamb, she might be clueless. Kivu is being an excellent mother, but is still walking around after Tarragon with a confused look on her face -- "Is that mine? Really?" Being a Shetland, she lambed with no problem on her own. Although Jazzy has some strong maternal breeds as part of her make-up, she also has a big dose of Texel. Texels have big, wide heads, and chunky bodies, and this can sometimes cause problems for first-timers. This is one of the main reasons we chose to breed to a Shetland in the fall. However, each lamb can have characteristics from either parents, just like humans. With Latifah's ewe lambs, lamb no. 1 Coriander is larger, more like her mom, with a long back. Lamb no. 2 is smaller, finer and more Shetland-like, with a shorter tail like her sire.)

We've had some issues with Latifah although her girls are fine. She had a hard time delivering the afterbirth, and ended up requiring a shot of oxytocin. This was really hard on her, being an older ewe. The vet stopped by and checked her out. She's getting five days' worth of Penicillin G, and then hopefully after that she'll be better.

Purebred Shetlands don't need to be banded because they are naturally short-tailed. Alison and I banded the white lambs yesterday. They were completely unconcerned. We were supposed to tag as well, however apparently the taggers are not here. I have a set for the AllFlex tags, but the newborn tagger went elsewhere last fall. I'll have to track it down. Hopefully Linda (Rose Haven Farm Store) doesn't have them, because she is enjoying a holiday in Peru until April 15! A month away, right during lambing season. I also gave all the lambs Selenium-Vit E. shots 12 hours after birth. Low selenium in soils is a big cause of lamb death. In areas where the soil is selenium deficient, rapidly growing lambs can end up with White Muscle disease. It's standard practice in this region to give preventative Sel-E.