Langreck: Small lamb changes hearts on farm

Spring lambing season is a common thing on our farm since we have been raising sheep on our farm for several years now. Since we don’t have that many ewes, my dad and son, Graham, when he is at his grandparents’ house, helps prepare the barn for birthing season.

Usually a couple days before a ewe is supposed to lamb, they move them into a separate part of the barn where they can be penned separately to have their lamb without the fear of the baby being trampled on by other sheep in the flock.

My dad has already had several lambs this season, a nice mix of ewes and rams, with a few more that just lambed this past week or are supposed to lamb in the coming days. One of those ewes was my son’s former show sheep, Carol.

I’m pretty sure in past blogs over the years I have talked about Carol and how she is one of the most stubborn sheep — actually, I would wager to say one of the most stubborn animals I have ever had to work with. She just doesn’t like to move, or really do anything that does not include lying around eating.

Let’s just say when it came time to walk her and practice setting her up for when she was in the ring at a sheep show or at the fair, nobody wanted to be the one that got stuck walking Carol due to the fact that it wasn’t really walking — more of nudging and pleading her to walk.

I usually got stuck with the job of walking Carol because Graham was working with his showmanship sheep, and being a 4-H parent, especially one to a member that shows livestock, means lending a helping hand when needed.

One day when Graham and I were working with the sheep and walking Carol and a couple other sheep, we had an emergency come up and my 8-year-old daughter, who dislikes sheep because they scare her and is stubborn as all get out, was the only person who had an open hand, so I threw Carol’s halter to her.

She was mortified and wasn’t sure what to do, even though she would walk with us everyday when we walked the sheep. I had no idea what was going to happen, but when I finished taking care of the emergency, I went back to the spot where I had given Carol’s halter to Addy figuring they would still be there.

I was surprisingly shocked to see that not only was Addy not in the same spot with Carol, they were almost all they way around the house and Carol wasn’t giving her a lick of trouble.

Addy is old enough to be in 4-H this year, but she said she would show sheep, if she was allowed to show Carol. I explained to her how Carol was no longer able to show, but if she had a baby she could show it.

Come breeding season, we send our flock up to my uncle who has Southdown rams to be bred. The first vet check showed that she wasn’t pregnant, and we were on pins and needles until the second go-round that showed she was closed and more than likely pregnant, but she would probably have a late-February lamb.

I was relieved — although I still knew there was a long way to go before any lambs were safely on the ground.

Throughout the past few months, whenever someone asks Addy if she was going to show a sheep, Addy would reply I will be showing Carol’s baby lamb.

I would always slightly cringe inside every time she said that, worrying about whether Carol would even have a healthy lamb. Then suddenly, about three weeks before she was supposed to give birth, she popped out a baby ram lamb in the middle of the night.

For as stubborn as she is, Carol has some of the best maternal instincts I have ever seen, and she treats her baby like he is the grand champion of champions. Addy is thrilled and has named him Goose and is excited to work with him.