And then there were three
Jonathan: Came home from this morning’s ‘croft run’ with another lamb, a wee helpless mite of a thing, struggling to stand. It was born just minutes before I arrived there, it’s mother standing over it, trailing an umbilical cord. She’s the equivalent of a pre-teen mother, barely 12m old – they’re not got what it takes until they are 18m old: for a pregnancy at 7m-12m there’s great risk of deformities, still-births, or the mother dying in lambing. But last autumn she escaped the field I’d put her and her three half-sisters into: she was bleating to get back with the grown-ups. I didn’t find out until the next day, and by then – apparently – … Anyway, Denise and I have just fed collostrum down into its tiny tummy, and after a few hours under the heat lamp it will be up and wobbling about. Her mother is too young to understand what has happened to her or know what to do: they learn from seeing the older generation give birth and nurse their young, and you can see them taking an interest in the new-born lambs: all that prepares them for their own pregnancies in a few months time. Anyway, she didn’t seem to have a clue what to do, and certainly hadn’t any milk to offer the wee thing. With the older two nick-named Bill and Ben, this scrappy little thing has got to be called … ? Answers by comment (below), Facebook or Tweet. First right answer gets a wee gift from the #HebrideanWoolshed
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