Harald is out

Having become increasingyl noisy and demanding whilst in the house, the Caddie lamb has been moved outside in a pen , with the  goose house having been unused by the goose  as a shelter , hes all set up
 And now is on 3 feeds a day

and finally

The last ewe to lamb is due on the 13th, but things got going a could of days early.
We can recognise the signs of early labour , which happened  in the early afternoon, but things changed and the typical behaviour - pawing the ground and separating herself off fromt he other sheep , didnt happen.
So come the evening we  had to have a look.
it was an obstructed labour with the first lamb in an abnormal position whih needed some manual help to get it delivered
Eventually  two lambs were born
.Some video a few minutes after birth

the mother didnt start immediaitly licking them dry , so we realised something was remiss.

We brought them inside as they were wet, it was wet and the mother 'wasnt right'   and got them dried off 

And the vet came and had a look atr the mother - and diagnosed a perforated uterus - an unsurvivable  condition. 

So some colostrum was taken from the ewe and then tube-fed to the lambs 

And now we have our own cady (orphan) lamb  - so its back to bottle feeding  every 4 hours or so until  they are a bit bigger and can join the other lambs 

Edward and Ellie

so we now have 2 cade (orphan)  lambs . So at least they can keep each other company.

They should be starting to graze and eat soem grass. So hopefully a  few more weeks of bottle feeding and they shoudl be out with the others.

Our own Cade

It started quite well - the Boraray ewe gave birth to twins.

The first one was born with the  legs straight back rather than bent forwards. Lambs in this position often cant be born without assistance but nevertheless, all three doing well in the first 24 hours . But then one of them was rejected by the ewe ( it happens from time to time - the ewe is happy with just one) . Had we left the lamb with her it could have been seriously injured by the ewe.

So we now have our own caddy (orphan) lamb .

After exploring the kitchen

He has been brought inside and need to be bottle fed 4 hourly for the first few days and have somewhere to sleep.
And someone to hold it and help keep it warm.

Our own caddy lamb

So the Boreray ewe had twins, as reported 3 days ago . They seemed to be a bit slow to feed from the ewe, from our experience of not much at all. But we were letting them get on with it.


At the first check this morning , there was mother and one lamb , but no sign of the other.  A hunt found it , in a shelter, a long way from its mother. So it was taken out of the shelter and across the field to its mother, who showed little interest.




 And it also had the typical behaviour of hypothermia (low temperature), so it was brought inside , wrapped up as we don’t really have any heating lamp for these animals and slowly it warmed up

 So it wasn't wanted by its mother,  and wasn’t old enough to venture out and survive by itself, so we have erected a temporary ( ie a few weeks) home for it.

  


  And we are back to bottle -feeding it. The lamb weights 2.2 Kg , so that is 140 mls every 4 hours.  As it is a few days old and (we think) has had some colostrum from its mother  the feeding isn’t as intensive as it might otherwise be.

 Of course it may have been rejected by the mother because it is not healthy. She certainly  seems slow to feed and develops hypothermia easily. We will just have to wait and see.

Caddy Lamb ?

So a neighbour called - do we want a Caddy lamb ? 

Caddy =  requiring bottle feeding either because its been orphaned , or rejected by the mother , or the mother cannot feed it.

So in spite of the shivering, placid, cuddly , lonely  3 day-old lamb being in the house

The answer from us was no.

But a couple of phone calls later and  he (Suffolk-Texel cross, but with no name ) can go to a neighbour.