Yesterday evening our oldest ewe gave birth to Spike. Born at only 3.5kg he is underweight.
Thistle is not the world's greatest ewe, and has never been very good at feeding her lambs. We have lost some as a consequence.
So we all helped; we dried Spike off and then spent an hour trying to get him onto the teat - in vain. I milked Thistle to get some of the precious colostrum, and then fed it from a syringe into Spike's mouth. By midnight Spike was still not feeding, but he was looking a lot better.
This morning he was still wandering around the place a bit aimlessly, but when his wanders took him near Thistle he suckled. He will probably be fine, but I will be checking him each hour to make sure.
Lambing - it's a nerve-wracking business.
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| Thistle's thirsty boy |
Thistle is not the world's greatest ewe, and has never been very good at feeding her lambs. We have lost some as a consequence.
So we all helped; we dried Spike off and then spent an hour trying to get him onto the teat - in vain. I milked Thistle to get some of the precious colostrum, and then fed it from a syringe into Spike's mouth. By midnight Spike was still not feeding, but he was looking a lot better.
This morning he was still wandering around the place a bit aimlessly, but when his wanders took him near Thistle he suckled. He will probably be fine, but I will be checking him each hour to make sure.
Lambing - it's a nerve-wracking business.
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