Sunday 8 March 2009

Meet the Milky Bar Lambs........

This is Frea (looking at the camera) and Finn (trying to hide), our 5 day old, 2 pet lambs. There are Kerry Hill x Oxford Down orphan lambs from a fellow smallholder, who has too many sheep to cope with pet lambs. Rather than give them bottles every 4 hours, they get their milk from a "milk bar", a bucket that has 5 teats at the bottom. At the moment we put 1 litre of milk in the bucket 3 times a day and Frea and Finn can drink the milk "ad lib" which is more like they would do, if they were with mum. It also means they don't get the bloated tum common in pet lambs and we're not harassed with the bottles, easier all round and hopefully when they get bigger they will behave more like sheep. They will be nearly weaned by the time we come to lamb in April and hopefully they will have very interesting fleeces.

2 comments:

Freyalyn said...

My first thought on reading the second sentence was "I bet the fleeces will be interesting". I may have to investigate further when they're bigger....

Hope all continues to go well. Good luck with your lambing.

Denise said...

Yes their fleeces should be interesting. I know what an Oxford Down fleece is like, but not a Kerry Hill one. Let's hope they've got the good properties of both parent's fleeces