january 16, 2007
We lost the twin lambs the other night. I think the problem was a combination of an exceptionally cold night and a less than super attentive mom who may not have been feeling right herself. It really bummed me out but I know that it's all part of doing this. Death is an every day part of this exsistence. So many animals, so many plants. Some die, most live, you get to see it every day.
When we started doing this I was a little aprehensive. No 4H experience. My Cub Scout experiencwe was inner city Chicago. We would do our Pow wow (Indian like camping trip) in Humboldt park with the Latin Kings looking on. A bunch of little Polacks dancing around in Indian costumes waving rubber tomahawks with a well armed group of gangbangers hanging out near by doesn't seem like the best training ground for sheep ranchers. When we first brought the ewe flock to the farm my neighbor, the dairy farmer, stopped by to assess the situation. I know that we amuse him with our jump in head first and figure it out as we go attitude. He looked over the flock and said that he'd once raised a small flock. Had em for a year, fed em a little too much grain and they died. Yep all died. My confidence was soaring. He wished me luck, chuckled a bit and left.
It's not hard to get advice from people around here. Most people are very free with their thoughts on your farming techniques and why they'll go wrong. The vet says one thing, the feed guy has a completely different idea, the traveling shearer believes in an entirely different strategy, the local farmers wonder why you're not growing insect and weed resistant strains of corn or running antibiotic and hormone infused beef. The Farm and Fleet guys just ask if you want fries with that. Buy a book and trust your instincts is our strategy.
Three days ago we had our second delivery of this season. A young lady to what was supposedly a good mom with momming experience. Jackie found her during her brooder mucking chore. Jackie loves to muck the brooder house. If you don't know what that means, you'll have to ask her. Apparently between Jackie's shovels of chicken sh.......manure. She noticed the lamb. Rufus was out there too, any chore involving livestock sh.....manure is a favorite of his, kind of an unplanned snack time for him. They went out and checked on the well being of the little girl.
Everything was going well. I came out and Jackie and I got mom and lamb to the jug where there was fresh hay and water and a nice warm shelter. Mom wasn't quite right and didn't finish cleaning and drying the little girl. We reacted by bringing the little one into the house. Jackie dried her off with the blow dryer and I prepared to bottle feed her. This is the text book response to a cold newborn and a not right mom.
Day one, stayed up pretty much all night and fed the new girl every hour. Day two, fed mom some medicine and kept bottle feeding.
We're on day three now and the lamb has doubled in weight and is now suckling from mom. She needs the bottle because her mom isn't producing much milk, but she's going to live to be added to our ewes. We'll see.
