At long last, I have a post that is upbeat and not directly to do with school - woohoo!

One of the popular fall activities for vet students around here is "lambing" - you and a friend go to a local sheep producer's farm and stay overnight, helping the mama sheep that are due to give birth. I've wanted to go since I've been up here, but loving and needing sleep the way I do, I didn't want to go on a weeknight, get zero sleep and hop off to school the next day. When one of my friends asked if I wanted to go with her on Friday night, I jumped at the chance as I could come home and sleep afterwards!

We met at the farm around 7 that evening. The farmer and his wife - both really sweet, friendly people - gave us a quick run-down and then went off to their dinner. My friends and I (one other joined us) settled into the tiny little shack set up in the barn - heated with a TV and a U-shaped platform that we could lie down on. We got out a board game and ate our dinner. Then we made the rounds of the sheep (six pens with probably twenty or so sheep per pen). The evening progressed that way for a few hours. Around 3am, the first bag dropped and the three of us climbed into the pen to see if we could help.

Most sheep have twins or even triplets; surprisingly, most of them don't need a whole lot of help in the process. Unfortuantely, almost every lamb that night presented incorrectly! There were backwards babies, upside-down babies and babies trying to be born at the same time - ack. The first lamb I pulled had both its back legs pushed out behind it, instead of pointed outward like a little diver; I was able to get it positioned correctly pretty quickly, but it was still-born (likely not my fault, but still sad). The rest of the lambs survived their improper positioning ordeals, though we didn't get any sleep (literally!) all night.

It was a really fun and informative time for me. I always find that hands-on stuff works well for cementing things into my brain, and I really enjoyed getting the chance to reposition a couple of babies and help out their poor mamas. I was so thankful that I had two experienced friends with me to help with some of the trickier positioned lambs. I was also thankful that I had some previous sheep wrangling experience so I could help by holding the sheep that were giving birth and needed the help. All in all an exhausting but awesome night.

This next week is going to be hell week for me - radiology final on Monday, equine midterm on Wednesday and a surgery patient coming Monday afternoon. The good news is that after this week, it's all down-hill coasting until the end of the semester! If I can hang on this week, I can make it.