Ruminations from the Lambing Barn - Rejection

Today the air is silver-hazed, and the grass flares livid green against the pale yellow of the daffodils beside the drive. Everything seems to cry out that spring is really here at last, and after the dull greyness of the last few weeks, that is a relief. Spring is the word that makes people think of unfurling buds, the delicate pinks and creams of cherry blossom, and lambs playing tag in the fields.

There are so many threats to a newborn lamb. The very first danger they face after they find themselves expelled from the warm darkness of their mother’s womb, is rejection. Sheep are usually wonderful mothers who guard their babies with a fierce and protective love, but not always. Sometimes a ewe, often a ‘shearling’ ( a first time mother) may decide with unshakeable determination that this lamb which just seconds ago swam in the amniotic fluids within her, does in fact have nothing to do with her at all.

A ewe just before she gives birth will dig nests in the straw, and lick at leaking birth fluids; she is learning to know her lamb by taste and smell, while all the time she bleats plaintively as if she has already lost what has not yet been born. After the birth it is by sound and smell she will recognise her lamb, and the lamb will know her by her voice. If that chain is disrupted and maybe another ewe licks the lamb thereby changing its smell, it is possible its mother will not accept it as hers.

This photograph should be called 'Mother Love' as this old ewe stares adoringly at her newborn lamb and it is clear that her only aim for months to come will be to love and protect him.

There are ways of dealing with rejection. One is to use a delicious vanilla musk to mask the smell of the rejected and accepted twin alike and that should hopefully convince the ewe that the two are both hers. Anther traditional way is to restrain the ewe so she can eat, drink and lie down, but smell neither lamb for a few days. By that time it is hoped, she will have forgotten which one was not wanted and accept them both.

That has never worked for me and I have usually ended up with the rejected lamb as a bottle fed pet, with a name, and a long life ahead of it, which doesn’t involve freezers or sheepskin rugs – fine for a ewe lamb as she can earn her keep in the years to come with her own lambs, but hopeless for a ram lamb as only the very best can be kept or sold for breeding.

Today I released a little ram lamb’s (photo at the to of the page) impossible mother back into the main flock and have resigned myself to bottle feeding him. I will try not to name him, nor to grow too fond of him, so he will be called just Lamb. But I fear that if you visit the farm in years to come, Lamb will be a fully grown ram, still enjoying our grass and feed. Today though, he sniffed the daffodils and wondered why everyone else had a mother and an on-tap milk bar...

There is still one ewe to lamb which has been scanned as carrying a single lamb, the rest are carrying twins or triplets. If the ewe with the single lamb decides to give birth soon, then I will try to persuade her to adopt Lamb. But if she takes more than a week, then Lamb will be too big for adoption, and the best I can hope for then is to find him a friend so that while he might be motherless, he won’t be alone - he will at least have someone else to snuggle up with on a cold spring night, and to hang out with round the hay rack. I will keep you posted…