Pastoral Ponderings:
A Shepherd's Blog

Morty

The kitchen door slammed. Lance made sure that I was awakened by the loud steps his boots made on the old wooden floor. “Three sets of twins and a single in the old barn. They’re cool. There’s a boatload in the shear barn; one ewe is running around and upsetting the whole bunch. I’ll meet you out there. How’d you sleep?” It was spring lambing time.

Although we plan for lambs at different times of the year, our early spring lambing is the most intense in terms of numbers and weather. Sunshine softened this chilly morning, but the frigid temperatures threaten hypothermia for newborn lambs if they don’t nurse. And a crazy ewe taunting other ewes and confusing their newborns can create havoc very quickly.

We are not a large ranch by any means. One of our ram buyers has 5,000 head of sheep with loyal herders who move the bands of ewes and lambs onto hillsides of wild oats after lambing in California’s Central Valley’s alfalfa fields. Our flock is a fraction of that size; our 200 acres supply our herd’s forage needs and the herders are Lance and myself. Our lambings hit a crescendo that demands that the two of us orchestrate our individual efforts as efficiently as possible. We’re tired and we’re irritable and we’re husband and wife. The potential for a nuclear explosion is but a comment away. Somehow the shepherds in us take over and the symphony is heard in the cooings of contented lambs.

The century and a half year-old barn has been regentrified from draft horse and dairy cow stalls to lambing pens. The post and beam structure cradles sheep suites that give the ewes and newborns time to bond as we monitor and document. Move groups in, move groups out, clean suites, feed, water, sort again and be vigilant.

I check the barns at night, bring in any new births, and leave notes on the coffee-maker for Lance. With coffee in hand before dawn, Lance assesses each barn for newborns and opens the pasture gates for those ewes not having yet lambed, and checks all of the ‘suites’. He depends on my maternal instinct, however, to unravel the tangle of animals that he finds in the shear barn group this particular morning. The loud thud of the kitchen door has always been a warning to me. There is no time to waste. “Check pen ‘1’ outside”, Lance muttered as he grabbed his protein drink in one hand and closed the door with the other. “A lamb is limping.”

This particular lamb had been in the mix of another tangle days earlier. A ewe had ‘stolen’ him, nursed him, and then indelicately dropped her own twins. He hadn’t been excluded from the new family but he had seemed forlorn during the last twenty-four hours. The lamb was succumbing to the stress of his confusing entrance into this world; his young system was suffering from a bacterial infection. Navel ill is a quick killer. Within hours blood poisoning would overwhelm the young lamb.

Quick support treatment kept the lamb alive but the septicemia had quickly paralyzed his hind end. “Sheep are born to die.” Such a maxim is repeated often to new shepherds, probably to assuage the guilt from lack of knowledge from which all novices suffer. Through the years we had rehabilitated many a lamb and ewe, but navel ill was always a challenge.

Laura, our youngest, was home on spring break. A great help in the lambing barn, she had an ear for the bleat of a hungry newborn. Laura named the non-ambulatory lamb, Morty, short for rigor mortis. Laura wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer; she was determined to make Morty walk again.

Several times a day, Laura gathered Morty up under the breastbone and forced him to move. His forelegs stepped ahead as his hind legs dragged heavily. There were other bummer, or orphan, lambs who kept Morty company and their free frolicking urged him forward. “Let’s go Morty,” Laura prodded incessantly until the hind legs began to move impulsively. The boot camp approach had worked.

“Where’s Morty?” Laura asks upon her return visits home. Morty is a big, kind sheep now who instinctively knows his importance on this ranch. Morty’s success was Laura’s success. Small measures of triumph bolster young adults as they are faced with daunting challenges of their own. We know the overall success of the herd depends on the strength of the individuals; the whole is the sum of its parts. Our own strength was renewed, and, boy, toward the end of lambing, we need a dose or two of elixir.

Our bedroom window opens onto hilly pastures that descend into the Squirrel Creek canyon. This morning I am awakened by the cries of the young lambs and their dams being herded through the gateway by Lance and Eliza, our Border Collie. Such a sight quickly glosses over the trials of lambing. The work is never over, but another composition is completed and the music is very sweet.

copyright@2009.
Lance and Gay Columbel. All rights reserved.