Snowbabies

Winter has been as cold, wet, windy and tough as summer was hot and dry. Most of the sheep and goats have stayed in the barns so that means carrying feed and water and hay indoors. Lot's of work for the shepherd, but this weather is hard on animals. Have lost a few of the older ones and was feeling down. Dotsy surprised me with these twins on the coldest day we've had. She is a first time mama and did a perfect lambing and mothering with her two sweet babies. Fortunately, I sheared her on the one warm day we had last week and she was smart enough, maybe cold enough, to seek shelter in the back corner of the lambing barn. Not all sheep are so smart. Some ewes and does get as far away from me and the other animals to drop their babies in the cold, wet, stormy and unprotected from predators place they can find. Dotsy spent hours drying the lambs down with her tongue then guided them to what saved their life, colostrum, without they cannot live. When she was through I moved her to a pen with warm water and hay for her and a dry bed and heat lamp for the lambs. Went back later to put sweaters on them and will leave them on a few days until they get full of milk and warm.