4th April - Twins and rejection

Tim went to the barn this morning to find a stray lamb. It would appear that Anya gave birth to twins in the early hours of the morning. A ewe and tup lamb. The trouble being, the little tup lamb appears to have been born "the wrong side of the fence" and as a consequence, his mother has rejected him. We managed to hold Anya and to get him to have a good drink, but she was not happy and at every opportunity Anya would head butt him out of the way. So we had to put him in his own pen for his safety and to let Anya settle down and feed her remaining lamb.
Peace now reigns, but it does mean we have to get a litre of milk into him daily, and for the next 3 days he will be on 2 hourly feeds. From 4 - 7 days the gap between the feeds increases so that he's down to just 4 a day, then just 2 feeds day. He hasn't quite got the hang of the bottle as yet, but I don't think it will be too long before he does. We've called him Dougal.

We let Abbi and her daughters out into the beautiful sunshine we are having at the moment. They have really enjoyed basking in the sun. Though this evening she has brought them into the safety of the barn. If it is as nice tomorrow, we will let Anya out with her daughter. We also penned up Brazil, though she is not due until Friday, she has a limp and we don't want to stress her out too much doing her feet, this close to giving birth. Last year she had triplets and she looks as big this year. We wait and see what happens.

Denise