Subterfuge down on the farm

Continuing the story from last time, we had, if you recall, a ewe that had one too many lambs, so they weren't getting enough milk to thrive as they should.  As luck would have it, the next day I was out with the Sheep Man, another lambing took place (eventually, I should say - these things can't be rushed, y'know!).  Anyway, this time the ewe had one (big) lamb, so steps were taken to remove one of the three lambs from the first ewe and present it to the new mammy sheep as 'one of her own'...

First, a print of some of the mammys-to-be, probably wondering if that strange thing two-legs is holding is in any way edible...

Expectant ewes, inquisitive as all sheep are, in my expert opinion...

If the scan of the print appears a little dark, it's 'cos I was intentionally over-printing it, with a view to toning it.  I just haven't got round to the toning bit yet...

Oh alright - since it's you, I'll tone it now.  Hang on a minute.  Sepia first...

After sepia tone.

And then sepia&warm selenium - the classic combination, like fish 'n' chips, or mac&cheese if you prefer:

Sepia&selenium tone

Which do you like best?

Anyway, although we're a bit disjointed with regard to the words and the photographs, let's continue with the details of how to get one mammy sheep to believe that a lamb from a different mammy sheep is one of her own.

Each ewe has a several markings on her fleece, as you can see above.  There's a letter and a number, which indicate her lineage. There's also one, two or occasionally three dots on her back, which are the man-that-comes-with-the-ultrasound-scanner's best guess at how many lambs she's going to produce.  Bear in mind it's not an exact science and also, one or more lambs can be still-born.  But, those things aside, the ewe that started lambing when I was present looked like she was only going to have one lamb.  That lamb was half-delivered as the Good Man's wife went off to take one of the three lambs belonging to the other ewe that had lambed a few days earlier.  Now things started to move fairly quickly at this stage.  The lamb to be fostered had it's feet tied with cable ties (two ties, front&back legs together), and was dunked rather unceremoniously in a bucket of water.  The legs are tied so that it can't suddenly stand up, as that would make the foster ewe suspicious and could lead to rejection.  Every time it tried to stand, it fell over - just like a real newborn.  Clever, eh? The water was so that they could slather the lamb in the birthing juices of the real newborn - the water helps the absorption of the aforementioned juices into the fleece.  Once well covered, the fostered lamb is then presented to the ewe as her own.  I can verify how well this works, since the ewe immediately started fussing over it and cleaning it.  Meanwhile, at the other end, the 'real' lamb was then delivered safely and also presented to the ewe.  The only other intervention was that the newborn was helped to take the first feed, as the first milk is the important stuff for a newborn and anyway can only be absorbed in the first few hours, so it would be wasted on the 4-day old lamb.  After about 10-15 minutes the cable ties were cut (first one, then a few minutes later the other) and the fostered lamb could stand again.  By that time, the newborn was also trying to stand so it all seemed above board as far as the ewe was concerned.

The only other point to mention is that the fostered lamb's real mammy was removed from the barn, as if she heard her wee one bleat she might get distressed.

I know, you didn't come to this place for detailed knowledge of how to foster lambs - but you never know, it might come in handy one day.

If you came here for some details on camera, film, paper etc, well it's not much but for the record, Hasselblad 501cm, 50mm lens, Ilford HP5+ rated at 200, developed in ID-11 1+1 for 13 mins (i.e., at the recommended time for 400 iso), split-grade printed on Ilford Warmtone fibre paper in Fotospeed Warmtone developer.  Well, you did ask! I think you did, anyway...