Friday, December 12, 2008

Look what we found!

Bailey says, "I can't believe it, another one of these".


Yes, this is a baby lamb! In December. We lamb in May/June. Go figure. We bought some ewes from a fellow in September and it looks like they had a night of frolic five months ago. Stinkers. The story of this little cutie goes like this,
Wednesday morning Larry came up to me and said, 'there's an afterbirth in the ewe corral'. Oh. Hmmm. An afterbirth. But, here's the kicker, all the ewes had already left for the field and there weren't any left behind and no lambs. It felt a bit like an issue of CSI - farm edition. So, I hopped on my new toy (which I've yet to show you) and went out to the field to find this new mamma and her baby. Well, I found the mamma, but she didn't have a baby with her. Which meant she left it somewhere. Darn it. So, Up and Down the hills I drove, through the high grass, through the bushes, for an hour. But, no lamb. So, I went back to the corral to the 'scene of the crime' and looked around. No lamb. I went to the next corral over where the calves were, no lamb. Just then, I had to 'yell' at the dog to leave the afterbirth alone and at the sound of my voice, there was a little "maaaaaaaaa". Sheep don't really say, "baaaa" until they're older :o). The lambs definitely have a more, "maaaaa" sound. Anyway, I digress!!! I looked down and maybe a foot away was the little lamb all curled up against the gate post to the calve's corral. So, as you can see from this picture, I brought him inside. Thankfully I still had some collostrum in the freezer and fed him. The dogs licked him and I snuggled with him on the couch for half an hour. Lambs love snuggles. They need snuggles. That night, we caught his mamma, but she didn't want anything to do with him, so I locked her in a head gate so she couldn't get away and he just went to town. It's been a week now, and she still doesn't want him. The past few days I've let her out to roam with a couple other ewes that look ready to lamb and then at night I lock her up again so her little guy can nurse. I was hoping, she'd take to him, but it doesn't look like it. She's a young, probably first time mamma. He is a real cutie and is thriving on her, despite the lack of love on her part. She'll talk to him, but will not let him suck. Everytime I come into their pen, he comes up for a snuggle. I should probably let her go with the main herd and make him an orphan, but I don't have the heart for it yet. One lamb alone is so lonely. At least he is with her during the day and happy. She's just not very happy at night. We've just been hit with a wicked storm and so, they are going to remain in this little schedule I've designed for them until it is over. It's only supposed to be blizzarding for a couple days or less, other wise it's just supposed to be REALLY cold. That's the story of the little lamb. My little Christmas lamb :o). Larry named him Bernie - after the fellow that sold us the ewes. I call him Ben.Are you my mamma?

5 comments:

Evelyn said...

Oh, I'm SO glad you found the lamb, Heather!

Oh, and I skimmed down over some of your older posts, (since my computer crashed, I've fallen behind!), and I'm just chuckling and saying "nice view, indeed!" :~)

Val said...

Isn't it fortunate he was born before this extreme cold! What a beautiful baby.

Deborah said...

The poor little lamb. I am glad you were able to find him. It is so sad the mama sheep rejected the little guy.

Anonymous said...

That's sad the mother sheep rejecting the lamb. He's so cute.

Annie Wicking said...

What a lucky little fellow... I hope he does well.

best wishes for you and your family for Christmas.

Annie