My phone pings. I check the message: “Did you mean it when you said you would take a poddy lamb?” A few messages later and it is arranged. I’m on standby. My friends Tim and Suzi, at the beginning of their first season as sheep farmers, have a ewe who has rejected the smaller of her twins. Tim and Suzi spend hours trying to get the ewe to take the lamb, but the lamb and ewe aren’t cooperating. The lamb won’t, or can’t, suck. They drop the lamb off to me in the afternoon. They are disconsolate. These first days of lambing aren’t going well. They have had a couple of sets of dead twins. The season has been hard and they have been feeding the pregnant ewes pellets and hay for months. Even now, when early autumn rains would normally have caused green grass to sprout in abundance, there is very little feed in the paddocks. Rain early in May spread a green fuzz across the landscape, but there’s not much in it. Pellets and hay are still required.
The lamb - who after considerable consideration and conversations gets the monicker Sweet Chilli Lamb (even though she is not destined for the dinner table) - is tiny when she arrives. She’s little more than bones wrapped in thin wool. She struggles to suck on the bottle of milk she is offered. She keeps losing the teat out of the side of her mouth. I syringe colostrum down her throat. Hold her head as I squirt milk into her. She sleeps. I put her in a box inside next to the dog’s bed. It’s by the fire but the fire isn’t on; it’s not cold. We think we will leave her inside for the first night but her bleating drives us to distraction. I cart her up to the shed. Make a nest for her in the hay, squirt more warm milk down her gullet, give her a heat pack, wrap her in warm towels and wish her well.
At 2am I get up, heat milk and take it up to her, half expecting to find a dead lamb. “Baa! Baaaa!” I hear as I slide the shed door open. She looks up at me from amongst the towels and hay. She seems stronger. I offer her the milk. She can’t get hold of the teat. We fumble but eventually I manage to hold it in her mouth well enough that she can grab it to some extent at least. She sucks a little but not properly. The teat slips out the side of her mouth. I poke it back in and get her to drink as much milk as I can. She barely manages 50ml. I tuck her into the towels again and leave her be, walk down the hill to the house. The full moon hangs in a starry sky, bright enough to give a silver sheen to the trunks of the karri trees. The horses watch me from the paddock. I imagine them confused by seeing me out at this time. They go back to munching their hay. I go back to bed.
Later, at five-thirty in the still-dark morning, I go and feed Chilli again. She is stronger. Noticeably so. All day we feed her every two or three hours, just a little at a time. By the end of the day, she can actually suck the teat.
The second night is the same. I tuck Chilli up in the shed and get up to feed her at 2am. I have the fortunate ability of being able to wake up at a pre-determined time. I don’t need an alarm. So getting up at 2am to feed the lamb is no great drama. But getting back to sleep is. My body seems to think I have already started the day and I toss and turn for hours before finally falling asleep, only to wake again a little while later, at 5.30am, as planned.
I have a day away (at Broomehill Book Bash; an excellent event that I throughly enjoyed) so leave lamb-care to Rob for the day. When I get home that evening, I take over again. Chilli is so much stronger and the instinct to suck has well and truly kicked in. I am exhausted from driving and being at the book event. I feed Chilli at 10pm and decide I won’t get up during the night. I am confident she is strong enough to make it through the night. In the morning, I am proven correct. She greets me with loud bleats.
The speed with which the lamb gains strength is astounding; the expression of deep instincts astonishing. She runs around the yard with the dog, whom she has latched onto as if she is her mother. Maisie tolerates the lamb butting up into her abdomen in search of teats to suck. It’s hilarious to watch.
At night, I tuck her up in the hay. I have made a little ‘pen’ for her out of hay bales. Within days, she can lamber over a single bale so I have to build it two high. She bleats as she hears me slide the shed door open. She is highly entertaining and every day it seems more likely that she will survive. Part of me wants another poddy lamb to keep her company, but in a way that is wishing for disaster. A poddy lamb will only come to me because its mother has rejected it or died. So as much as I would like Chilli to have company, I don’t want that to happen. So far, lambing in Tim and Suzi’s flock seems to have turned a happy corner and the paddock is full of healthy lambs and ewes, all fully bonded and thriving. Time will tell if Chilli ends up with a poddy friend. Time will also tell whether or not she stays a pet or goes to become part of the ewe flock and raise lambs of her own. Remind me not to get too attached to her in case she does go back to the flock. Yes, it might already be too late!
See you outside,
Jill
I was “today” year’s old when I learned the phrase “poddy lamb.” Glad to see the little one doing well. Seems like your dog has a new best friend!
What a lovely story! I do wish you good sleep though!