Well, it definitely could have been worse. For anyone new here, we lamb several times a year, and this time around, the lambs were due on Monday—right as the weather was turning bitterly cold. By Tuesday, the temperature had dropped to -20°C, with no sign of warming up until midweek. We fully expected the lambs to show up during the worst of it, so I spent the weekend prepping for the inevitable.
The heated shop became my makeshift ICU, complete with a dog crate and heat lamp, ready to warm up any little ones who couldn’t handle the cold. I’ve always believed in the theory of inverse Murphy’s Law: if you overprepare, maybe the thing you’re dreading won’t actually happen.
And then... nothing. Not a single lamb arrived. By Wednesday morning, just as the weather began to turn and things started to warm up slightly, the lambs finally made their debut. What a relief!
Now, here I sit in my little room at the barn, warming up this guy—a triplet born this morning who just needs a little boost to get going. It’s funny how you can plan for chaos, only to have things turn out almost peaceful.
The lambs have been arriving at the perfect pace, just a few every four hours or so. It’s almost like they coordinated their schedules for once! If lambs had smartphones, I’d swear they were texting each other to stagger their arrivals.
We’re sitting at 11 lambs so far, with about 30 more expected. I won’t lie—it’s still early days, and I’m sure the chaos will hit eventually. But for now, I’m enjoying this calm, steady pace while it lasts. After all, this might just go down as the smoothest lambing season I’ve ever had. Fingers crossed it stays that way!
Farmer Rod