Two thirds way through lambing season, my brain is a bit fogged from long hours in the barn, lack of sleep and sensible meals, and a general sense of disconnection from the outside world. Mental fuzziness really affects decision making – but not always in a good way – as proven by the events of this weekend where I made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time . . . . .
As we had suspected, once we had started bottle feeding Issey, his mother wouldn’t have him back. The dilemma – where to keep one orphan lamb?
A potential answer seemed to present itself on Saturday night when Lavender, another first time ewe, went into labor. I had heard that it is possible to graft a motherless lamb onto a ewe if the lamb is young enough and if you are able to slip the "foster lamb" into the ewe’s presence as she sees her own lamb for the first time. The process is officially called "slime grafting" since an important step in getting the ewe to accept a lamb that isn’t hers is to rub as much birthing goo as possible onto the orphan, so that both lambs smell alike.
As Lavender’s lamb was born, Mike deftly passed Issey to me. I quickly bathed him in the warm, sticky saline-smelling amniotic fluid that came with the newborn lamb. When Lavender turned to see her new lamb, she saw instead saw two lambs. She was skeptical from the start. Either I hadn’t slathered enough goop onto Issey, or she was just smart enough to sense that something wasn’t kosher. In cleaning her lamb, she pretty carefully avoided making tongue contact with Issey, despite my attempt to position the two lambs in proximity.
Then she delivered a second lamb.
Lavender began cleaning all three lambs and then it slowly seemed to register that something still wasn’t right. Her focus went back to the first lamb. No matter how hard I tried to get her to clean her second lamb, she passed right over him. "Born-again" Issey by this time was on his feet and had found her udder. Having a 24 hour age advantage, he wasted no time in helping himself.
I placed the three lambs beneath the warming light thinking the sight of them all together in her pen would stir her maternal instinct. . . .
She didn’t buy it. Inspecting them all closely, she quickly identified her favorite and once again ignored the other two. She then became more forceful in expressing her feelings about the two who weren’t hers, smacking them rather hard with her head each time they stood.
I then began to realized I had made a pretty big mistake. Not only did the slime graft fail, but I had now confused a perfectly able first time ewe into rejecting one of her own lambs. Essentially I now had two orphans on my hands . . .
Which, given the late hour, meant we had two unexpected house guests for the night. We placed Issey and "the other guy" (was too tired to name the poor thing) in a box beside our bed. The lambs , who seemed comforted by the barn sounds coming over the baby monitor, woke hungry about every two hours, so I bottled them. Part way through the night, they became restless. I let them out to stretch and walk around, so they could make themselves sleepy again, and I spent what was left of the night not-sleeping on the floor where I could keep tabs on two lambs bumping about the bedroom. I was afraid one would stick his nose in an electric outlet or pull the clock radio off the night table. It was a very long night. Each time a ewe’s call came over the baby monitor, the lambs answered.
Thank goodness I didn’t have to go to the barn to deliver more lambs.
By morning I knew I had to get these lambs back to the barn and, if at all possible, re-acquainted with their respective moms. It sometimes works using a device called a stanchion, in which a ewe can stand up and lie down, but she cannot see which lamb is nursing. A stanchioned ewe will sometimes come to accept a lamb she had formerly rejected.
Here is Issey (left) with his mom Sage and brother Miyake. He seems happy to be with his family, back in the barn. Sage seems resigned to mothering twins, as long as she can’t see both of them. Time will tell if I have convinced her to accept her lamb.
Lavender is also stanchioned, directly facing Sage so they can commiserate on the stupidity of humans. Lavender too seems to have settled down to mothering. I know I will be pretty lucky if I pull this off. I will certainly think twice before trying to interfere with the natural bonding process.
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copyright 2008 Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs. All rights reserved.
