Monday, January 2, 2012

Lamb update

Yes, that is a lamb's head surrounded a quilt.  Yes, there is a lamb's body attached to the head.  No, it's not a good thing.  This morning, Sarah & I went catch the ewe so the firstborn twin could eat.  There was not as much tail-wagging as I would have liked, and very little actual slurping.  And, the poor little lamb kept switching sides, indicating that there wasn't much milk there to be had.  We let her eat as long as she wanted, and her tummy still was not full.  She had a bad hunched-over appearance, and was rather listless, so Sarah & I decided we needed to feed her from a bottle.  Naturally, we did not have any milk replacer at the house, so off to town we went.  We got back, made up the bottle, and went out to feed her.  She took 10 ounces, which is a lot when you only weigh 3 pounds.  She wasn't hunched-over anymore, but she was standing around shivering.  She had gotten cold all the way through and couldn't get warm.  Her activity level was up, but she just wouldn't stop crying and couldn't stop shivering, so I picked her up and into the house she went.  Sarah wanted to sit and snuggle the baby, but I convinced her that a nice soft warm bed was better, so we put a quilt and the jacket Sarah had been wearing into a laundry basket, and in went the lamb.  She finally quit shivering and went to sleep.

Now, there is no way that Steve and I can both work full time and successfully raise a bummer lamb, but Mom has a gal coming to help with Dad for a couple of hours during the day, and she had said earlier that she would take this little girl if the milk-stealing arrangement didn't work out.  So, this little cutey is settled into her new home where she will be well-cared for by someone other than us.  Needless to say, the momma ewe has a black mark on her record.  This is her first set, so she'll get one more chance.

No comments:

Post a Comment