Friday night when I did my 11 p.m. check, all the sheep were in the barn. The wind howled as I rounded the corner and faced into the wind; tiny pellets of snow cut at my face – ‘not a fit night for man nor beast’. I pulled the barn door shut and trapped all the animals in the relative warmth of the barn – at least they were out of the wind. By morning, it would be degrees warmer inside than outside.
Orange number five had not been able to adopt a new lamb. She licked it, but when we tried to move her away from her dead lamb, she left the new lamb for the dead one. We didn’t want to have her lick the new lamb and completely change its odor, and then abandon it, so we returned the live lamb to its real mother who was birthing her third. I guess Dave and I really aren’t risk takers. Fifty yellow, the mother of the triplets is a good mother, they will all thrive under her care.
When I opened the door at 7 a.m., four more ewes had lambed. I was grateful that we hadn’t had to search for those babies in the storm.
No comments:
Post a Comment