We have just about concluded our spring birthing season here at Circle M, and we’ve got a mom-n-tot corral full of healthy nursing families. What a joy to watch lambs and goat kids explore and stretch the limits of their spindly legs.

The goats immediately start climbing on whatever they can find and then suddenly fall asleep curled up in whatever nook or feed bowl is available. The lambs immediately start running. One night I was in a small pen watching Prissy nurse her new triplets, trying to discern if each one was, in fact, getting some milk. I was in there, crouched in the hay, for about an hour and the whole time I could hear Spot, now a big brother to six smaller siblings, running in and out of the barn. He’d run in at full speed and then bounce three times to stop himself at the wall of the barn. Then he’d tear out of the barn into the outer corral and bounce three times to stop himself at the fence of the corral. Over and over again. I could have written a rap song to his constant rhythm had I not been too exhausted to think.

Birthing this year was tiring, but mercifully short. I’ve never been one to supervise the does and ewes a whole lot because in my experience they rarely have trouble delivering and cleaning up the babies themselves. I’ve several times pulled a baby that was coming slow or seemed to be stuck in a mom that was tired after presenting other lambs. Once I find a mom with babies, I pick one up and use it lure the mom into a small pen in the barn so I can watch them nurse for a few days. Sometimes, I end up bottle feeding a runt that I see is not getting an adequate share.

However, this February we lost Lena’s twins after she birthed them in the middle of a cold night and never nursed them at all. We brought them inside after finding them nearly frozen in the morning, but they were both too compromised to rally back on bottles. Then Cricket, who delivered first this spring, had twins early in the morning before we were up, and though we found Spot healthy and strong, there was a sister trampled in the corner of the barn. Cricket, too, refused to nurse Spot until we held her still for several feedings and held him to the teat. These two experiences convinced me that I had to keep a more watchful eye out for births, and so I resolved to check the barn every four hours morning and night.

Most shepherds of large flocks have some system of supervising births. Some install baby monitors that transmit to receivers in the house, others have “barncams” that are like mall security TVs, and still others sleep on cots in the barn. After seeing one neighbor’s framed-in sleeping stall at the end of their large lambing barn, I exclaimed, “How cool!” To which she replied, “Yeah, except for the rats.” My strategy was to make sure someone from the family was home during the days to check every four hours and I set an alarm for myself through the nights. The worst part for me was getting up and having to change out of pajamas and into barn clothes several times a night, and I was pretty tempted to take a sleeping bag out and just bed in the hay. And I was even more tempted to just fall into bed without changing from my stinky manured corduroys.

I should have saved my kids’ baby monitor, because even though my barn watch started April 6 when Cricket delivered, the rest of the babies didn’t start coming until April 15! You can imagine my relief when both Tapioca had kids and Polly had lambs at about 5 that morning. Then Prissy had her triplets two days later. So now we are done, except for a new milking doe, Mary, I’m getting from a neighbor today. She’s pregnant and due any time. I’ll be back to a regular sleep schedule within days, hopefully.