Above: The night the lambs arrived in the ranger's van.
Ah yes, I remember it well.....that is because it was only 2 years ago and my dementia has not progressed as far as some may have suspected. I was already caring for 2 orphaned lambs when fate threw me a curve ball.......
Winter 2009, the fateful night when 17 orphaned lambs were found on the roadside by the local ranger. Now, the ranger made the necessary enquiries of the local farmers: "Are these your lambs?" he asked one and all, to which they all replied "Nope. All my lambs are present and accounted for", which would have been impossible for any of them to know because they each had 1000 or more lambs on their farms at the time. None the less, the thought of saying "Yes, those are my lambs" would not have crossed their minds because ....who in a balanced state of mind wants to be burdened with the chore of feeding 17 orphaned lambs?
Who indeed you ask, and so did the ranger. He asked everywhere because until he found a kind hearted foster mother, he himself was burdened with the chore of feeding 17 orphaned lambs. In a passing conversation with the local shopkeep, the ranger heard of a newly arrived green horn with the soft heart of any city girl raised to think of all animals as sweet and loving pets. His ears pricked up and a plan brewed in his mind: "This soft hearted city girl will surely weep at the tale of these misfortunate motherless lambs...."
After the predicted heartbreaking phone call between ranger and soft hearted city girl, the sad group of lambs arrived at Morilla that evening, and such a terrible state they were in, it broke the city girl's heart. Dirty, thin, hunched up and hungry. By a simple blessing from above, we had 2 extra pairs of hands that night- my daughter and her husband were visiting the farm. So we all pitched in and the chaotic, confusing and altogether delightfully satisfying task of feeding our new charges began. They jumped up, they bleated, they fought over the bottles....and a few just lay down and looked lost, tired and unwell.
There were lambs everywhere. There was milk everywhere. What we seriously needed was a plan, a strategy, a system, a way of keeping track of who had been fed and who had not.
The system came in the way of a brilliant idea that could only have been devised by a genius- separating the ones who had been fed from the ones who still needed feeding. This system worked well for the first month until they were well enough and strong enough to go into the big yard to live and graze. Then we had to reassess the system. Initially we utilised fluoro marker pens to put dots on the heads of the ones we had fed. This worked for a while. Soon they had so many dots no-one knew what was going on and the lambs looked like they had some rare and exotic disease. Thankfully, we had come to recognise each individual lamb by this time, each one of them a unique little fellow with a unique little personality and a unique little face. Now we were able to keep track of who we had fed because we knew them all and had named them all. They were all given names related to a physical feature or personality trait- Curly Top had a curly head of wool, Blue Eyes had blue eyes and later was renamed 'Frank" after Sinatra, Black Spot had a ....oh, I'm sure you get it!
Below: First night at Morilla, enjoying a much needed rest on the dog bed
What a skinny and sad bunch of little ones! My heart just broke for the little ones!
Lambs looking happy and healthy! The one with the green head was on medication!
Below: There's Black Spot! The little one in the top right with the very small head ( we called him Grandad, but he was renamed Nathaniel before he died) didn't make it. He stopped eating and just faded away over the course of a few days. He was not a well lamb from the day he arrived but I had always thought he was going to survive! He was the third one to die. The first died a few days after we got the lambs. He had been unwell with scours from the start.
The second died the second week after they arrived of overeating disorder, also called enterotoxaemia. Over eating disorder is caused by an excess of milk in the lamb's stomach that digests slowly, fails to break down the starch and sugar properly and causes bacteria (which feed on starch and sugar) to proliferate in the gut. The bacteria release toxins (the bacteria's waste products of metabolism) and these toxins poison your lamb. It can be a particularly nasty way to die, producing severe colic and convulsions. It is preventable if you are careful and mindful.
My poor lamb developed overeating disorder after I tried a 'lamb bar' that a neighbour had loaned to me, assurring me that this was the best way to feed lambs. A lamb bar is just a bucket with several teats attached. You put it on a stool, fill it with milk and the lambs help themselves. The problem with a lamb bar is obvious, once you know about overeating disorder! You just can't monitor how much each lamb is drinking- some gourge and some starve. It is a lazy method of feeding your lambs and I highly advise against it. Each lamb needs an exact amount of milk at regular intervals each day- initially at least 5 times a day. Do not feed your lambs twice a day with a lamb bar because it is easier! If you are going to raise an orphaned lamb do it properly! Monitor your lambs' intake!! Know how much they are drinking. Just this alone will improve your chances of keeping your lambs alive!
Running for dinner! They would run up every time they saw someone hoping for a bottle and a rub!
Ol Blue Eyes who is now renamed 'Frank'. He is everybody's favourite- pretty, sweet natured and very affectionate
Scout with her pop out eyes!
Inspecting the cat
My boy feeding Scout- she always preferred to sit on your knee for her feed.
Growing into very nice sheep, and in with the general flock
After their first shearing at about 7 months
Loving an ear rub
The look of love
'Little Ram'
Getting bigger still- Frank in the foreground
Sizing up Enoch!
Now fully grown, Little Ram having a go at Enoch.
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