Two out of three

In the early hours of Sunday morning one of the ewes had triplets. I did a 2:30am check and the amniotic sac was bulging out which meant she would deliver fairly soon. I left her to it and returned at 3:30am, just after the third lamb was born. The usual process of penning the ewe up with her offspring and some checks followed. The third of the triplets, however, was unable to stand on its rear legs and in fact they were entirely floppy. In all other respects he seemed quite okay. I parked him next to his two larger sisters and left mum to continue licking all three clean. 

Back at 7am and the two ewe lambs were up on their feet suckling but the ram lamb was still unable to stand. Once all the usual feeding jobs were done around the smallholding I tube fed the ram lamb with some powdered colostrum as there was no way it would be able to suckle being unable to stand at all. 

Later in the morning, after a discussion with the vet over the phone, she visited and her view was that the ram lamb had been born with a congenital deformity. Both hips were effectively dislocated with no functioning ligaments to hold the joints together. This was not considered treatable and so the sad but necessary decision was made to put the lamb to sleep. There was also the possibility that the lamb had acquired a viral infection called Schmallenberg's Disease so blood samples were taken from the lamb and the ewe for testing to hopefully rule this out. The vet examined the surviving lambs who were both healthy. Mum did not appear to miss the third of the triplets and seemed content with her two new ewe lambs. 

Sometimes it is necessary to accept that things don't always turn out as you expect them to. On the other hand, the hard reality is that in this case the ewe would have had a lot of difficulty looking after and feeding three lambs. The outcome for the surviving two lambs is somewhat improved.