Loading ...It has been quite a weekend. We have been trying to get the house ready to go on the market, dealing with lambing dramas and on Saturday hosted the Spring meeting of the Shetland Sheep Breeders of Ontario!
Saturday’s meeting started with great sadness. As the first person arrived I had discovered the little ewe lamb was missing, I had been out not an hour before and she was fine. I found her body in the far field, we think Aspen was trying to play with or take care of her. There wasn’t a mark on her, but she was gone nonetheless.
There were still lambs to be cuddled though, as on Wednesday evening WillowGarden Smirnoff had given us twins, a ewe (gulmoget) and a ram (krunet). Their sire is FirthofFifth Aman.
Sunday morning we went out to let everyone out of the barn and heard crying coming from the wrong stall. But the twins were both accounted for! We discovered a little ram lamb in the far stall crying his heart out, with the two dogs in the middle stall. The little ram had wounds on both shoulders.
We discovered that behind a log in the back corner of the stall that is the ‘maternity ward’, there is a small hole that goes down and then under the stall wall. He must have fallen down and through! We went looking for who he could belong to and discovered Cherry still delivering the placenta. We reunited the pair in the warmth and safety of the garage.
He kept trying to feed but couldn’t seem to find the teat. We tried helping him and only managed to annoy Cherry. In between visits to the barn, the day was spent trying to get the house cleaned, with much appreciated help from Elizabeth.
After a lot of worry, much advice sought, and many failed attempts at getting him on the teat we mixed up some colostrum replacer that Bill had very thoughtfully brought us on Saturday. The little guy took the bottle really well. We tried again at getting him on Cherry, and thought we succeeded, but then he still didn’t seem to be able to find it on his own, and it looks as though Cherry does not have any milk.
This morning Cherry was looking very weak, and had us quite concerned. The little guy seems to be doing OK, he certainly has a healthy set of lungs on him, although he has given us some worrying moments through the day. We are doing everything we can for both of them, and keeping them together as they are bonded and both get very upset if separated.
Please send positive thoughts to both of them. I will keep you posted.
Hoping that this morning brings good news for Cherry and her lamb. Very stressful this whole lambing business and I’m only reading the blogs! Will keep you in my thoughts today.
Comment by Christine — March 30, 2010 @ 6:16 am