Pet lamb

I've got something to admit. I've known it for some time now... 

I have a pet lamb. Actually I've not known it for that long since I only got her last week.

So, her name is Monkey, and she's a cross between a Mule dam and a Texel tup. 

Her story is a sad one. 

She was born to sheep number 86, one of a triplet, and probably the strongest of the three. 

Near her nursery pen was sheep number 90. She just had 1 lamb, her second lamb died during birth. 

Sheep #86 wasn't producing enough milk to feed all 3 lambs, so we had to foster one lamb onto #90, since she just had 1.  Monkey was chosen as she was the biggest. We skinned the dead lamb from #90, and dressed Monkey in her new macabre jacket. Instead of the new foster mother accepting Monkey, she could tell it wasn't her lamb, and kept beating her up. After 2 days of trying to foster Monkey on, we called it a day and took off Monkey's jacket and I got to keep her!

So, Monkey moved in with us in Old Botton Farm.

Since her diet has somewhat changed from Ewes milk to conventional Lamb Milk Replacer (A powdered milk substitute) she's got terrible diarrhea and so we made her some nappies for when she is in the house.

Lambing Begins

So, we’ve started lambing now… Our first Ewe lambed today, with some difficulty.

I got a phone call at around 10am saying that one of the Ewes was lambing, but it looked like a dead lamb. Off I ran down to the farm.

Sure enough, he looked pretty dead. Just the head was sticking out and his tongue was all swollen up… When I got all cleaned up and pulled him out, I was sure I saw some movement. And when we got him clear he coughed and spluttered back to life, so I carried him around to his mother and she licked him dry. He was a funny looking thing, with a huge head because it had been out so long.

About 30 minutes later his brother arrived, looking much more like a normal lamb.