Perseverance is not for the weak

It has been a hard go for my sheep program to even get off the ground.  I started with Babydolls in 2019, and started with Americans late in 2023.  My matriarch with babydolls has only ever given me singleton lambs.  However, she is an amazing mom and I take her to school every year for a wool demo because she is so very tolerant and great with kids.  She has been attacked by dogs twice in her life (it was supposed to be an experienced LGD... nope), and still she lives.  Last year was super hard for us with a ewe I bought going down with Preg tox while still in quarantine from coming in as a new ewe.  Sadly we had to help her deliver and then raise her triplets, as she is no longer with our farm. This year we had another dog attack.  Living in the country we get dogs dumped here all the time.  We took in this stray because she was gentle and nice and seemed to fit in well.  We worked on her excitement towards the sheep and all seemed well, until it wasn’t.  An ear (poor Ewe-nis) and a large vet bill later, and the sheep were able to recover and the dog found a new home without livestock.  Last week was a very stressful and happy time for us.  Our sweet Snickers went into labor Tuesday morning.  After over an hour of observation on the cameras and nothing to show of it I decided I needed to go check and make sure she didn’t have a tangle of lambs as she was marked for 3-4.  Upon examination I discovered that the first lamb was breech.  Since that is not conducive to delivery I had to intervene and help by guiding both back legs up and out.  He took a minute to get right with the world, it is a rude awakening to come backwards like that, but he is healthy and strong now.  The second lamb came out perfectly but with a HUGE surprise for us in that he was black.  I never expected to have a black American Southdown lamb, but we are so happy with him.  Lastly, there was a little ewe lamb with her head back and twisted and all mixed up.  Surprisingly she was harder to correct than the breech lamb, but I was able to do it and get her out alive.  Snickers is such a great mom and took the assistance like a champ as well as her 3 babies.  She happily cared for all three.  However, since sheep only have 2 teats we determined through bottle supplementation and weight gain that the little girl would be coming into the house for bottle raising.  Our goal is to reintroduce her back to the flock in about a week or 2 when, with any luck, she will only associate us with her food and mom won’t try to take her back.  She has 2 hungry boys to feed.  So far things are on track for reintroduction to the flock so she can be raised with the other sheep as examples.  Thursday of last week we had another breech delivery from Fleece-ity. As she only gives me singletons it was not expected that she would have any trouble delivering as she has never had any trouble before.  After a bit of assistance, a beautiful little girl was born.  We did attempt to foster our bottle baby onto Fleece-ity but alas she is a singleton mom and refused to have more than one.  It all works out because we love our little bottle lamb.  This leaves only Sheep-ira left to lamb out in about a month.  With the difficulties we have had so far, I made a call to my vet to see what I was doing wrong.  It turns out that we aren’t doing anything wrong, it was just my luck.  You see my vet and I have a standing joke that I am the unluckiest when it comes to anything small ruminant, and we both question at times why I continue.  I continue, however, because I want to persevere.  I want to carry on and not give up and to show my kids that you can make it through hard times.  There are days and times that I wish the hard days would slow down, but there is a learning opportunity here for myself and for others.  God will only give us what we can handle.