Coco went into labor Saturday morning, May 2, 2020. The first lamb, a ram, presented butt-first and I was unable to turn him to get his legs out first. I slowly delivered him so not to damage Coco. The 2nd – a ewe – was a normal presentation (head and 2 front legs) and was born without any issue. The 3rd was also a ewe and was presenting with only 1 leg forward; her head and other front leg were turned away from the birth canal. I live-streamed the lambing on Facebook Live once we realized there was a 3rd lamb. You can see the video below: (it is graphic and stressful)

After the 3rd lamb was born we made sure they all nursed, got weighed and navels dipped in iodine.

It became clear by the afternoon that Coco didn’t want to feed the ewe lambs – only the ram.

So we brought the girls in the house for a while…

but decided that they needed to be with Coco as long as she didn’t hurt them.

We added a couple boards in the jug we had Coco and the ram lamb in so that the girls could get away from Coco if needed.

We held Coco so the girls could get some colostrum, plus we supplemented with bottles of colostrum we had frozen the previous year (in case of emergencies) mixed with colostrum we milked from Coco. We continued to milk Coco for a few days until her milk supply had slowed for only 1 lamb.

After a couple days in the jug, we let Coco and her lambs out with the other mamas and lambs. She watched over all 3 of her babies, and we went out a few times a day with bottles to feed the girls.

We were thankful that she didn’t totally reject the girls because lambs learn so much from their mothers, including what is edible and how to interact with other sheep.

Over the 3 months of bottle feeding we decided to keep one of the girls that had become such a love bug. We named her Natalie and she is growing into a beautiful sheep.