Could these twin Leicester Longwool lambs be the first born in south Lincolnshire this year?
They arrived just over a week ago with no intervention from rare sheep breeder Barry Enderby, of Whaplode.
He says it’s the second set of twins born to the three-year-old ewe.
Barry, who is chairman of the Leicester Longwool Breeders Association, has a total of 25 ewes, and 18 of them are expecting lambs within the next few weeks.
That’s going to mean a lot of disturbed sleep for Barry, who has a baby alarm from the sheep shed to the house so that he is roused if the ewes give birth during the night.
He said: “I get up whatever the birth and whatever the time. If they have had multiples the ewe might lay on one of the lambs before it’s got up on its feet and so I get up. You get to recognise distress from just a cat walking through the shed. You get to know the noises.”
Barry is hoping the rare breeds might fare better than the commercial breeds, some of which have been affected by the Schmallenberg virus already this year, though not locally.
Meantime he is still admiring the newborn twins, a matched pair boy and girl with pure white legs. Barry, who says there are always things to correct when breeding pedigree sheep, borrowed a ram from South Wales to eliminate leg colour.
The lambs will go outside in about four weeks’ time.