Yesterday I had a lovely surprise when I went down the hill at dawn to feed the animals. There were the 3 big white sheep looking like stranded whales and obviously still very preggers. "Ah well" I thought to myself "one of these days we will get some lambs out of these girls. Or maybe they will just explode because they are fat and not pregnant." Then out of the corner of my eye I saw Dippy sat in the gorse of the orchard with a dark shape at her feet. Yipppeeee! a lamb.
He is a ram lamb, with impossibly long legs and chocolate and white markings. Very cute. Mum did not look too happy with her head down and rear end upwards. I wondered if she was having another or maybe passing the afterbirth. We all had a look before school and the boys were thrilled to hear lamb bleat and totter over to mum.
We had some concerns yesterday that lamb (who shall have no name to prevent distress when his time comes) was not drinking. After school we all reassembled and sprayed his navel with iodine to keep infection out. We put him and mum together in the pen so that she could bond with him in peace and get him feeding. I attempted to shove him on the tit, but he would not drink. I was worried that he would die from a lack of food so milked mum into a container and tried to feed him some of her antibody rich milk from a bottle. The teat was designed for small rodents, so did not work for sheep. I got a proper one today, but was pleased to see him feeding a couple of times.
It feels like we have waited 2 years for this little fella, so we are all stoked. We are having some interesting discussions with the boys about our future sheep plans. They like having them around but moan like crazy when asked to help with the routine work.
