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[Kokuma]

Ok, my friend has sheep flock of 12 ewes (females) and a ram. None of the ewes supposed to be labouring this early in the winter - the main lambing season is in the March and April - and you can guess the look in my friend's face when he went to feed the sheeps in Wednesday morning (2nd of Jan.) and heard a whiny little "baa" from the ewes' stable.

Yes, the cry of a newborn lamb.

Let me introduce you Elmeri, our best New Years present

Apologize about his "slime soaked alien" outlook. Newborn lambs are not very fluffy and whitey and cute. Just wait, when Elmeri's wool curls up and he gains some fat in his body he'll look much more roundy, puffy and "lamby".

We named him after Elmer Fudd in Looney Toons cause we chose the letter E for lamb names in the first half of year 2008, and Elmer's name in finnish dub of the cartoon is Elmeri =)

Actually, not all the news are that happy. Elmeri had a twin sister who died at age 12hrs cause of no reason. When we check the barn at noon, the female twin was quite normal. She could stand, kept quite a loud noise for being that small creature and she nursed on her mum quite well.
When we went to give the sheeps evening hay at 7PM, she laid on the straw bedding the way we could straightly see that we have lost her.

R.I.P. little Emiko. These things happen sometimes and they are usually caused by some disturbance in intestines development like in lungs or kidneys. Usually these slightly premature lambs die before age 3 days, and every time it happens all of a sudden. Lamb can act all normal, move, keep noise and nurse on his/her mother or bottle - and couple of hours later pass away without any warnings.

Here's another pic where Elmeri poses with his mum, T14

These texel breed ewes look so much alike that we have chose to name them with codes (in form T##) until my friend orders these "earring" style ID number plates for them sometime this year. After they get number plate attached in their ear, they are more easy to recognize and they are going to get "real" names. There is already Sally and Pamela in the flock so the others' names are propably going to be picked from soaps like The Bold & the Beautiful and Young and Restless (LOL)

T14 is good mum. Seemingly this wasn't her first labouring and unlike some young ewes, she knows how to take good care of her offspring, encourage him to nurse on her with tender head pushes and that way.
I've seen first-timer birthgivers that look on their lambs like "Ewww take those slimy little aliens away from me now!!". Some refuse to nurse their lambs and act all unmaternal which gives plenty of work to the shepherd in form of midnight wake-ups and bottle feeding.
But not this mum 

This wasn't even the first time when these ewes have gave "January surprise" to us. An year ago there was same situation, no labouring was predicted to happen before March and there was born THREE lambs from two ewes in first week of January! Ok, this time there has come two lambs from one ewe this far and these woolballs have still 2 days to break the record  

I named the album "Sheep Circus 2008" cause the life with these woolballs is sometimes total circus and comedy show... Or haven't I mentioned about the annual "We Need To Get These Things To The Summer Field - Hey There's Two Running Away, After Them!!" -rodeo in May (LOL)

More pics of the Millhill Farm woolballs coming later this Spring 

[Koluki]

Wow Kokuma! That is such a funny photo! Tell the shepherd congratulations from me! :O

[acidiica]

Awwww, do they ever give birth to black lambs too? And do they come out black when they're born or just turn black with time?

T14 looks very good with her son. I'm sorry to hear about Emiko =(

[Bojko]

Oooh, Elmeri is so cute! I love the second picture. :3

Sorry to hear about Emiko, that is awfully sad, but I'm sure Elmeri will bring many a smile. I look forward to more pictures Kokuma! 

[Kokuma]

Awwww, do they ever give birth to black lambs too? And do they come out black when they're born or just turn black with time?

When these two are going (hopefully) to get babies in March, how many % of them do you think are going to be common white? 

[Koluki]

Err, maybe 0%, does that sound about right to you?  Love the pictures Kokuma, did you take them yourself?

[Rose]

Awww! So CUTE! Maybe you could make a couple of sheep adoptables for us! Poor little Emiko.   Why did she have to go? If you've ever seen the little raccoon in Calvin and Hobbes, that's my outlook on it. Sometimes Calvin can be so nice.

[Kokuma]

Yes, I know the "little raccoon" thing in C&H

I am not sure is it good idea to show this next photo, but;


Rare pic of Elmeri & Emiko
Took when they were about 6hrs old, and dug outta my cellphone's photo folder.

I think this taught me/us something. Next time if there is even possibility that lamb might have problems with nursing on his/her mother or looks any way weak we need to check the situation every 4th hour like we do with one lamb last year who was bottlefed from the very beginning cause his mum abandoned him and we couldn't bond them together again.
Every 4 hrs in daytime and for the night it's 6hrs sleep for the shepherd. Newborn lambs need to be fed every 4 or 5th hour.

About Aciidica's question;

Some sheep breeds like "Kainuun harmas" (Kainuu Grey), the rare subspecies of breed Finnsheep give birth only to black lambs, and their wool turn to grey after the "baby wool" has disappeared at age 4 to 6 months. Many sheeps breeds can give birth to black, brown, grey or "turtle pattern" lambs (black/white, brown/white, grey/white or maybe even brown/black who knows, hehe). It depends in the genetical background, and example in Finnsheeps these "color genes" can jump over two generations. Example white ewe that had black or brown great-granmother (or -father) can surprisingly get non-white lamb. This happened in 2006, I'll post pictures into the "Archives" album later.

The black ram, Uolevi, in the posing photo in my previous post used to be chocolate milk powder brown when he was lamb, and hiscolor changed into black when he grew up. Chen-Chen aka. Panda-chan (from same photo) used to be black when she was little and now she's grey. Her mother was half-bred Kainuu Grey so that explains it.

When black ram that used to be brown and grey ewe that used to be black have babies, I think there might come basicly ANY possible color

We are waiting for March really excited!

[Kokuma]

We knew there was 2 other pregnant ewes in the flock, but we didn't know they want to join the "maternity gang" already...

Let me introduce you Elena & Enia, born in 20th of January

Twin girls. First female twins since...2006? Usually it's male and female.
Both were energetic and lively from the very beginning and knew how to nurse on their mum without help. No problems with that. I wish all the lambs were this strong and ewes this maternal as their.

NOTE: Enia is pronounced same as "enya".

Elmeri is now 2 weeks old and looks much more of a sheep than soaked alien as he looked in the newborn pics.
what a bouncy little guy. Never stands still more than 1 second. Do sheeps have ADHD? ;P

Another new shot of Elmeri the New Years Lamb
What a heartbreaker...hehe

And finally, the cuteness overflow which took me 15mins to wait until I got perfect picture:

Elena and Enia sleeping

Elena in the left (note the black spot in her right front leg) and Enia in the right. Elena's using her sister's head as pillow, hah. When the lambs are put back into the flock with their mums in age 4 weeks, it looks really cute when they sometimes sleep in one large stack with legs and heads pointing into all directions - just like puppies and kittens do. I need to take pics of that later.

There is still one ewe in the flock, named Molly, whose udders are swollen quite a lot which  means she is pregnant and her lambing time is quite near.
There might pop up 3rd set of babies in next couple of weeks. Who knows?
(After that there should be no more births before March...)

Life in this farm is always full of surprises

[Koluki]

I have to say, I could never live on a farm. Too much work!

I dunno, is it something about the shepherd! He must be very good if all these ewes are hurrying to give him early lambing presents.