Poor, Monstrously Big #33

big33Look at this girl! This is #33, the quirkiest, dorkiest, homeliest of our sheep; and also our favorite! She doesn’t take any guff from the dogs, and if there is  Border Collie anywhere outside, #33 sticks to our legs like glue. She knows where the safety zone lies!

I was convinced a month and a half ago that she was due to lamb any minute! She is as big as a hippo, and has been bagged up all this time. Her udder could rival any dairy cow. She is six years old, and kind of saggy and baggy, so it’s hard to tell if the fetuses have moved downward or not, whereas on younger svelte ewes, it’s easier to see when they are dropping into birthing position.

She ran with a ram before I bought her on September 21st, so I thought for sure she would have been bred by him, and would have lambed in January like the other ewe did who came with her.

But, she is now past the time frame where her lambs could have belonged to him. Even by the largest time table I’ve seen published for sheep: 140-159 days, her last day to have produced his lambs would have been February 26th. I first exposed her to our ram on October 6th, so the likely earliest date for them was Saturday. There was a small window where I was nervous, if she would have lambed midweek, I would have felt unsure who the daddy really was- I should have waited a little longer to let Hershey loose. But, she has gone long enough now that I know for sure they belong to Hershey!

I’m taking bets there are three of them in there! When she stands, she is very lop-sided. Poor thing, she is literally going to feel 30 pounds lighter when she unloads those babies!

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