Puppies and Lambs

Can you do anything more wonderful than hug baby dogs and baby sheep? The Director of our ballet: LoriAnn and our mutual friend, Blair. Blair lost her husband, Robert, to COVID complications a few months ago. We are all connected via Christ and Ballet and medicine in our community. Today we just loved on farm animals and enjoyed spending a few hours with these wonderful ladies.

Lori Ann (left) with "Mando" and Blair with "Jack"

Lori Ann with "Madison"

We had a sheep that was a triplet and was rejected by his Mama. We decided to bring him into the house, give him some milk, and let a friend feed him for a few days before bringing him back into our flock.

Me with little Heidi. She is SUCH a sweetie.

Lori Ann's granddaughter came with for a visit. She and Abigail are the same age: both homeschooled and in ballet. This is the dog that Sarai loves. We call him "Washington."

The evening before, my friend Erin came over with her two daughters: Haley (7th grade) and Allie (4th grade). They had previously had two of our puppies but due to allergies had to regime them. Both of their previous dogs are doing great. These gals are BIG-TIME pet people:

Allie (back) and Haley (front) came over with their Mom (Erin)

These girls are SO photogenic!

Look at those dimples (and puppies!)

Erin with "Washington"

Here is the latest on our lambs:

1. We lost a set of twins. We are pretty sure that something was "wrong" with the mother's utter/milk because the mother was attentive and the babies were thriving at birth. But they both declined rapidly and despite bringing them inside, we could not save them.

2. We had another baby born that appeared "off." Honestly, my first thought was: "I think this lamb is brain damaged." It's Mama was trying to get it to eat, but it just kept wandering around, confused. We decided to pull it. The Kotynski girls took him home to feed him overnight, but he died before bed even came upon them. That just confirmed that something was truly wrong with this little lamb.

3. We had a sheep with a prolapsed uterus. She died which left her baby as an orphan. Because the Kotynski girls had just lost that lamb the night before, they decided to take this very healthy lamb and take care of her. They named her "Lamby." We have decided to try and reintegrate her into the flock to have some "friendlier" lambs in our group. Normally, we don't keep lambs that are bottle-fed because they could then have babies that are bottle-fed. But in this case, Lamby's Mama simply died. She is an orphan. So we will give her a chance to breed. 

4. The day after "Lamby" was born, we had a sheep that didn't lamb last year, lamb this year and totally "reject" it's baby. This was a boy. This happened to happen while the Law's were over visiting. They decided to go ahead and take this lamb home for a few days. The hope is we will also reintegrate him into the flock. Because he is a boy, he'll be very friendly, but we will also process him for food in a year or so. 

5. The day after the Law's took home Lamb #2, we had another rejection. This time it was a mother who had triplets. She was ignoring one of the triplets. This, in and of itself, isn't completely abnormal. A mother can rarely feed more than two lambs. Some people automatically pull one lamb when triplets are born. I called Erin Law and asked her if she'd take a second lamb for a few days. She said yes. Here I am trying to feed this little guy his first bottle. No, it is not Mountain Dew. A huge thank you to Anni who brought some goat colostrum and milk down for us to feed these guys! It's just par for the course around these parts. Here 

We have had nearly two dozen lambs born this season. We've had many great stories. A few hard ones. I'm realizing that every year will probably be like this. Lots of happy. A little sad. And fun snuggles along the way.