Elsie is Punctual

Elsie lambed yesterday afternoon on her due date.  Elsie is pretty much the opposite of Henrietta: she white and quite big, she pops out lambs quickly, and she's a shy lamber.  Henrietta is like "Hello, I'm in labor now.  Come sit with me!"  (Really, both times she's lambed I've sat beside her in the barn, and she's actually scooted closer to me.)  Elsie starts getting paranoid when her time approaches.  Monday, she moved from place to place in the pasture, started settling in--and then would take off when a person approached, a car drove past, or a sheep sniffed her.  We jugged Elsie Monday night, mainly because I have so many pregnant ewes to watch right now and didn't want to put up with any nonsense.  Like lambs under the chicken coop. 

"What a fabulous place to have a baby!" Elsie

Elsie started yesterday around lunchtime.  She dug the biggest hole possible (that's why her lamb is so filthy!).  Knowing Elsie, I avoided going into the barn until I could see a water bag.  About thirty minutes later, Elsie gave birth to a beautiful ram lamb.  We've named him Zircon.

One very dirty little guy

 Zircon is absolutely gorgeous.  When we chose Gunpowder we were hoping for spotty offspring, and he delivered.  (Of course, we were also hoping on ewe lambs, and we're still waiting for that!)  Zircon is white with brown spots all over--I especially love the one on his ear!  He looks a lot like his mom, Elsie.  She is white with just a few light brown spots--one on her head and a couple on her legs. Elsie has now given birth to a rainbow--black, brown (both last year), and white.

Lick, lick, lick...

He's mostly white under all that dirt!

"How cool will horns look with my spotty ear?" Zircon

We're very surprised that Elsie only had one bun in her oven, especially since she looked like this a few days ago:

False advertising

I guess we didn't learn our lesson from Sandy last year.  

Tiffany should be up next...In fact, she was due Monday, and still is showing absolutely no signs of impending lambing.