At 9 am this morning Polly expelled the gargantuan afterbirth of her beautiful family, so we can all relax and get down to the business of keeping the triplets warm and fed.

The weather is damply miserable today and in the 30s, so I’ve got a heat lamp on the pen, but none of these babies show any sign of shivering at all. They are all just about uniform in size, and large, which is unusual for triplets, in my limited experience. The second ram is slightly lighter than the others, but they all look about the same. The first ram, however, in the light of day, appears to be a quite rich shade of yellow, which is generally not the best sign. Likely he endured some stress as the birth got underway, and he evacuated meconium, or more simply stated, poop, into his birth sac. The normally clear water in the sac turns yellow when that happens, and the babies come out looking like they’ve been laid in a scrambled egg. Sometimes there is an attendant infection in the lungs, if the baby, either human or otherwise, has spent too much time “breathing” the contaminated water in the womb. I think our little guy might just have pooped during the squeezed wrestle to get pointed properly into the birth canal.

Some colorful activity in our barn last night! I didn’t notice how yellow the ram was in the dark, but the flash of the camera made it clear.

We had some neighbor kids over this morning to visit the new babies, and they came up with some fun names. Our yellow ram is Mr. Butters, for obvious reasons. His sister is named Angel because her fur has an adorable long halo sticking out straight from her body. And we’re still looking for a good moniker for Ram Number 2. Post some ideas!