And over to Skye...

Benbecula, the sheep who lived, has given birth. Our second lamb in two days. 

The new boy on the block is called Skye, and he's a strong wee chap:

Likes a drink, does Skye

Thistle and Spike

Yesterday evening our oldest ewe gave birth to Spike. Born at only 3.5kg he is underweight.

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.

Flame of life

Yesterday night we had to put out the flame of life of our wonderful tup, Phoenix. 

He was born here on the Croft on 8th November 2007 the son of a black sheep, Mildred. Black sheep represent good luck here in Catalonia and I was lucky with him. Phoneix was the ram with hay fever, and the father of all the lambs born on the Croft in the last seven years.

Mum, son, and daughter

You learn from animals, and I have learned a lot about sheep from Phoenix. Starting with his birth; I thought that Mildred was just a bit overweight... I went up to the field on that day in November and found a new lamb, and an old sheep (Polly) dead of natural causes. His flame of life ignited as hers went out.

Butt me no buts

And now the cycle has been repeated, although this time with more knowledge - on the part of the humans - about what is going on. For one day before Phoenix' flame was put out a new lamb - we called him Flama - was born.
 

The new flame

The flame of life burns on.

Bramble Breaks Out

Bramble the lamb is small...and can still slip under the fences. Here she is, on the way to freedom:

A sheep off the old block

Here is Bramble.

All together now: Sweeeeeeeeet!

This is Bramble a couple of days ago. She had a thorn in her foot and that had led to an infection (you can see that she has picked up the sore foot, in the photo) and a fever. I cleaned her up in the kitchen.

My foot hurts

And this is Bramble's mum, Benbecula...in the same kitchen, in April 2011.

Hmm. Strange grass, here...

Benbecula had fallen ill with Clostridial disease, so we poured a beer-bottle full of bicarbonate of soda down her, and she lived.

Orful, but recovering

We've had a mixed week here on the sheep front, but with a happy ending.

I found that one of our lambs - Bramble - had what looks like orf, caused by the parapox virus.

 

I'm gummy, mummy

 
Her mother, Benbecula developed mastitis in one side of her udder at the same time and we have been supplementing her one-sided feeding with the bottle.

So Pep the Vet put me, and Benbecula, onto a strict treatment regime of antibiotics and milking out the gooey stuff that Benbecula was producing from the sick udder. 

The regime seems to be working. Benbecula's teat is no longer producing puss, and Bramble appears to be feeding from both udders again. Thanks, again, to Pep.

Benbecula and Bramble

 The latest addition to the Croft. Here is Bramble, just 2 hours old...:

Oli booster

Ovelia Modale, better known as "Oli" needs a wee booster. His mum, Ballachulish has mastitis and so is only giving milk on one side. It's a messy business, feeding the wee one:

Mine's a pint

Enough!