Saturday, March 1, 2008

The Story of Emma


Emma then.......and now
The story of Emma goes like this..... Emma was a twin whose mamma didn't have enough milk for her, so she joined the group of 12 orphan lambs we had in a pen in front of the house. She was always a loner and not really thriving, but she was very eager. I even tried grafting her onto a ewe who lost her lamb and she loved her new mamma, but the new mamma just wanted her old lamb and didn't let Emma suck unless we had her head stuck in a neck-squeeze (the mamma's head, not Emmas!) After 3 days of leaving the mamma in a neck squeeze, I let her out and she still wouldn't accept poor Emma, so Emma went back to the orphan pen. Still she didn't thrive, but she was such a sweet little thing. She loved snuggles and attention and she was so quiet (a rarity among orphan lambs!), but she was still a loner and preferred to be by herself - another rarity among sheep. Well, a couple hours down the road lived a wonderful family (My brother, sisterinlaw and nephew and 2 nieces) who wanted a few sheep to eat all the grass and weeds on their new acreage. I knew I was going to give them Rita and Two, my two Border Leisters (sp) and their 3 lambs, but I decided to give them Emma, as well. They worried about poor Emma, because she was such a loner, but she was happy and she loved the kids and they loved her and went out often to feed and water her by hand every day. One day a dog jumped over their fence (or maybe dug under, I can't remember) and killed one of the lambs that belonged to Rita and Two. It was a nasty guard dog that lived across a great big field at a junkyard. Well, despite everything they did, the dog came back and grabbed poor little Emma and had her in his mouth when the kids' brave Daddy chased him away with granpa's quad. The dog didn't kill Emma, though, but she couldn't walk or stand up, just lay there. So, they took her to the vet and the vet said he couldn't find anything wrong with her, but you never really can tell with lambs. Auntie Heather came down to pick Emma up to take her back to the farm so that she could see if Emma would get better. Well, as you can see in the second picture, Emma got better. Slowly, but surely, Emma began to stand, then take a few steps and after a few weeks could go outside again and that was her favourite. Heather would leave Emma outside for a few hours to eat grass and then put her back in for the night. Well, one day Emma decided to join the mob of sheep that was walking back to their pen for the night. She looked over her shoulder a couple of times to see if Heather was watching, and then she just tossed her head as if to say, "I'm a big sheep now!" and she joined the flock. From that day until now, she has been one of the flock. She stayed so small and was always easy to pick out, but now she's grown so much and looks very much like one of the sheep. I don't know if she has been bred or not, but we will see come May :o). Maybe she will have her own babies and go with Rita and Two and their ewelamb ( who is grown up and going to have a baby in May too I hope) back to their home down the road to be looked after by my three little shepherds (3and a 1/2!) And that is the story of Emma. Hope you liked it Brenden, Jayme and Jesse! I love you!

1 comment:

Michelle said...

Well, I certainly liked the story of Emma! I started at the beginning of your blog and this is the first mention I've seen of a particular breed. What do you raise? I got the impression you only had two Border Leicesters and gave them away; what are the rest?