The Gang of Four

Well the lambs are growing well – all except Brownie. He’s still very small and needing lots of breathers between drinks. He’s been having between 150ml and 180ml over the last few days. The rest are now on 200ml each feed. He gets fed last or the others just try and steal his bottle, and he feeds better if he’s held against my legs. Discovered he likes his milk colder than the others: We’ve been reducing the temperature slightly from blood-heat to tepid, for all of them.

Friends came to stay on Monday so we had volunteers for the afternoon and evening feeds. Funny though, could we hear snoring from the spare room at 7.15 the next morning?!

Bottle Feeding Lambs

There’s definitely a Gang Of Four who bounce around, plus Brownie who can’t quite keep up. They’re spending all day outdoors now so on Tuesday we made them a new enclosure with some temporary poultry netting – the stuff that rolls out with spiked posts. However… we had forgotten the rabbits had been eating it (last time it was out it wasn’t electrified). Spent the afternoon sitting on the ground knitting the holes together with baler twine with much help from clambering, nosy lambs. Now it’s electrified they quickly learned that fence eating is not advisable!

We’ve given them some creep and their own water - chickens do not like sharing. Also over the last few days they’ve been playing with grass in their mouths and some have been eating little bits.

The bad news - yesterday mid afternoon Brownie wasn’t looking good. He was lying down by one of the fruit trees in the sunshine, quivering and breathing really hard. I still feel he may not make it and am kind of steeling myself. Then with no warning he’s up and about exploring with the others. I am wondering how many lambs we will have tomorrow morning.

Learnings:

Do not put poultry fence away without mending it first.

Lambs like to chew shoe laces and trousers when you’re sitting on the ground.