Easter Lambs the story continues.... 2010
April 2nd two day old lambs came to West Woolley Farm. They were both triplets and needed bottle feeding. The lambs are growing! We keep them in a pen on the lawn during the day but back into the Stable overnight as they are too small to fend off a hungry fox.
We have called them Sam and Sally.
They are still a bit confused as to who their mother is and where their milk comes from - much to the confusion of Toby!!!
More pictures on the Gallery
The lambs were doing very well. Sam had a running bottom for while which took a couple of treatments with anti-biotics to sort out and Sally looked a bit bloated a couple of times. Don't try to look up treatment from bloating on the web - every body has conflicting ideas and cures. We don't want to go down the "Far from the Madding Crowd" route. A good read for sheep husbandry!!
After an afternoon gamboling on our lawn we put then to bed only to find Sally did not make it through the night.
Big panic what will we do with Sam? We tried keeping him in the Kitchen with the dogs. OK for a while but meant a continual washing of the floor. We tried putting him in with the big sheep but Sam didn't know he was a sheep most probably thought he was human or a dog! The other sheep kept crowding around him and pushing him about so that was not working. We needed another companion. The jungle drums were dusted off and we asked around all we knew with sheep but at five weeks all the orphans and triplets had been settled somewhere. Then by chance Debbie Hamilton from Gooseham Barton riding stables called and during the conversation we remembered she has sheep. Great luck she has several triplets and several orphans.
So we hot footed it over to Gooseham and found Norman (well that is his name at the moment he is so white and looks like the sort of lamb you see in a biblical illustration we did toy with Gabriel). Norman and Sam are now great friends and we are all happy but a bit sad about Sally.
We started putting then in the field next to the other sheep at six weeks old so they could get used to each other and bringing them in at night. Now at eight weeks we have put them in with the big sheep and they are all getting along fine. We brought them in for the first few nights but now they are part of the gang (or is that flock? The way they act I think gang is about right) they stay out all night. They still like to be fed "Starter Nuts" in the morning.
