Ashley's work

Ashley has been working for Judy Gunn taking care of her sheep for a few years now and has really loved the opportunity to learn so much about taking care of the animals. She loves those sheep. Judy has given her a lot of responsibility because Ashley is willing a capable. Right now she is out of town and there are a few sheep who are pregnant so she asked if Ashley would go up and check to make sure whoever was scheduled to work showed up and did all that was required and to check on the sheep. She went up last night and noticed that Diddo was looking different. She was worried about her so we went up to check on her today. I was waiting for her in the car while she was down checking it out. She called me on my cell phone to tell me that Diddo had a baby. Ash went right to work doing what she has learned to do. She checked first to find out if it was a boy or a girl. Its a boy. She called again and asked me go down to the barn with her and hold the new little lamb so she could put the iodine on the umbilical cord. Then she put him him in the sack to weigh him. He's 12 lbs! Ash recorded the birth and the weight. She doesn't know for sure when he was born but he was dry so figured that it was late last night or early this morning. She'll tag and tail him on Tues.

It was fun also to see how protective Diddo was of her baby. She kept grunting at us and rubbing against me when I was holding him. I'm glad she didn't ram me! When Ash took him out of the stall to weigh him Diddo went with them. Ash said that they usually don't let the momma out while they do this but Diddo was ok. She didn't get in the way too bad. Ash took them back to the stall and closed it up. She went to get some cob for Diddo. As soon as the other sheep heard her in the cob they came running! Ash gave them a handful then put some in the stall with Diddo and in the next stall just in case one of the other sheep went into labor during the night. While she was doing her work I was standing by the door and one of the bigger babies, Harry, knocked me with his head. I laughed and patted his head then stopped. I was watching Ash and Harry knocked me a couple more times. He's worse than Toby! I started petting him and he just sat and enjoyed it. His mamma stayed close by and every now and then stuck her head into my hand too. I don't know if she really wanted the attention or was just checking me out to make sure I was ok.

Ash called Judy to tell her about the new baby. Judy told her that she was so glad that she had Ash to rely on while she was gone. She said that she wasn't even worried about the sheep because she knew Ash would take care of it.