Baby, It’s Ewe

If you enjoy visiting obscure corners of the Capital Region, you can’t do better than the Washington County Fiber Tour. It’s all backroads and small farms and goats and sheep – and a great excuse for a drive in the country to peek at places you wouldn’t ordinarily see.

On first stop on the tour there was a barn full of sheep and newborn lambs prancing around and some ladies spinning wool into yarn  — but when we walked outside to take in the view, things got real.

A brown sheep stood in the field with a large, bloody mass hanging from its hind quarters. We alerted the farmer. He found a dead lamb lying nearby in the grass. His wife went into action, like something out of The Incredible Dr. Pol, and found that what we saw was the sheep’s unattached placenta. But there was more. She reached half her forearm into the ewe and discovered  another lamb in breech position. Grabbing hold of its legs she gave a firm pull — and out came the second lamb, alive and well.

This picture was taken just minutes later.

Whoa.

I guess that’s the point of these events, to give city folk a look at what life is really like behind the fences and barns we drive by along the road. What’s business as usual to a farmer is like a miracle to us.

4 thoughts on “Baby, It’s Ewe

  1. There is a wool yarn store called Ce Ce’s in Guilderland.
    They have a sheep farm in Duansburg. They have had 45 lambs this spring and there is male ram that did it all!! You can find Ce Ce’s on Facebook.

    1. That’s the normal routine, from what I hear. Most males don’t get selected for such service; we know where they end up.

Leave a Reply to Rob Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *