At 4am this morning I noticed our last ewe due had passed her water bag but showed no other signs of lambing - she acted completely normal. We checked her every 15/20 minutes, again absolutely nothing just wondering around eating hay with the others and no dilation. By 7.30am I thought this wasn't right and rang our on call vet who agreed and said if shes clearly not in any distress he'll make his way over for 8.30 to check her over. Over he came (he was fab), he was slightly puzzled himself, she had clearly done stage 1 of labour but that was it, she had completely stopped, not dilating, never had any contractions and was now starting to pass slightly darker fluid so he thought she was aborting her lamb and really a c-section was the only option to reduce the risk to her if we left her longer as it had been at least 5 hours since her waterbag appeared. He tried to manually feel due as she hadn't dilated it was quite difficult and didn't hope much for the lamb.
Anyway, after the c-section were are relieved to have 2 live lambs but the mother completely ignored them (understandably). On the vets advice we left her for half an hour on her own to see if she would come round (we could see from a spot she didn't know where we were) but she never once tried to clean them up. The tup lamb was quite active and tried to suckle but kept getting knocked away by the ewe, which then she did try to butt it quite hard so we removed the lambs and penned them next to her. Every 30 minutes we are getting in and trying to get the lambs to suckle, which they are one at a time, the ewe really doesn't like it and flees to the corner of her pen turning away but if we make her she does let them suckle. However, if left with her she is quite hostile with them.
We will persist with getting the lambs to suckle for now so they get plenty of colostrum but need to make a decision as to whether they are now orphaned and need bottle rearing (I wouldn't trust the ewe with them overnight at all). We can milk her to get enough colostrum for overnight or continue with persistent feeding if required. We are amazed to have 2 live lambs and obviously don't want to risk any injury (or worse) to them but when do you call it a day with knowing the ewe has definitely rejected them ?? Its our first c-section and first rejected lambs. I can completely understand shes been through quite a trauma, shes had everything she needs from the vets but gather by not going through labour she doesn't even know the lambs are hers.
Could really do with some advise !!
and the vet has no idea why things just stopping or what could of caused it either