Meet Daniel, my last winter lamb. He was a twin, but rejected despite every trick I tried. So, as Murphy chuckles over the irony, my last winter lamb is an orphan.
A single lamb by itself - a single sheep even, is miserable. They are intensely social creatures. I was determined that I wasn't going to have a lamb in the house this year - I'm too busy to keep things cleaned up after myself and the dogs, so a lamb would be over the top. If it were a ewe lamb, it'd be different, I could put a diaper on her. A male lamb is not anatomically created for a human diaper to catch everthing, so it causes too much mess. Plus, I'm out of the house to work most days, and he would be miserable without me - they bond almost as strongly as goslings. So, as I battled guilt and worry, I put him in the nursery corral with my other mammas and babies. After nearly losing his little voice calling for a mamma, he bonded with my old ewe and her little ram lamb, Chinook. Chinook is small, too, his mamma is just too old to be a mamma really. So, now they both get a bottle several times a day. It worked out. Phew. If you notice his coat, it's a dog coat I made for a friend who has a sparsely coated little dog - it's wool fabric lined with denim and it is perfect for lambs. I sewed it closed while on the lamb, so that the snaps wouldn't inadvertently come undone as he was playing with his buddies.
Meet Daniel, my last winter lamb. He was a twin, but rejected despite every trick I tried. So, as Murphy chuckles over the irony, my last winter lamb is an orphan.
A single lamb by itself - a single sheep even, is miserable. They are intensely social creatures. I was determined that I wasn't going to have a lamb in the house this year - I'm too busy to keep things cleaned up after myself and the dogs, so a lamb would be over the top. If it were a ewe lamb, it'd be different, I could put a diaper on her. A male lamb is not anatomically created for a human diaper to catch everthing, so it causes too much mess. Plus, I'm out of the house to work most days, and he would be miserable without me - they bond almost as strongly as goslings. So, as I battled guilt and worry, I put him in the nursery corral with my other mammas and babies. After nearly losing his little voice calling for a mamma, he bonded with my old ewe and her little ram lamb, Chinook. Chinook is small, too, his mamma is just too old to be a mamma really. So, now they both get a bottle several times a day. It worked out. Phew. If you notice his coat, it's a dog coat I made for a friend who has a sparsely coated little dog - it's wool fabric lined with denim and it is perfect for lambs. I sewed it closed while on the lamb, so that the snaps wouldn't inadvertently come undone as he was playing with his buddies.
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