First Lambs!

The first lambs of the year were born yesterday.  Nobody who played the Guess A Lamb game got it exactly right, but a few people were pretty darn close!

Rowena lambed in the early evening yesterday, a BIG white boy, and a teeny-tiny moorit badger girl.  The boy weighed almost 11 lbs. and the girl weighed almost 4 lbs.  I've never had such a huge size difference in a pair of twins before, but her small size probably saved the girl's life, because she was a breech birth.

Often, when a lamb is born breech, their umbilical cord gets pinched while they are in the birth canal, which triggers them to try to start breathing while their noses are still in the amniotic fluid.  They often end up dying of pneumonia due to the fluid in their lungs.

But this girl was so much tinier than her huge brother, she didn't get squeezed at all, as far as I can tell.  I still need to keep an eye on her to make sure she's getting enough to eat (it's hard competing with a sibling who's nearly three times your size!), but so far it looks like both lambs are going to be okay.

It's impossible to get decent lamb photos in the barn, so I'll have to post some better ones of these two in a few days, once they're outside.  But meanwhile, here are a couple of blurry photos just to give you an idea of the enormous size difference between the two babies.

And now, for the results of the first round of the Name That Lamb contest!

The white boy lamb's name is Xaq (pronounced "Zack").  The name was submitted by my friend Stephen Pappas.  Thanks Steve!

The girl lamb's name is Xoco.  This name was submitted by Robin of MommyMommyLand and by Catherine Sanchez, a fellow Icelandic sheep breeder, of Applegrass Farm in Maine.  According to Catherine, the name is pronounced SHO-koh, and is an Aztec word meaning "little sister."  I figured this tiny lamb is probably the littlest sister we're going to have this year, so the name fits!