Susan in the Yard

I thought Susan was looking especially cute on this day so we had a spontaneous photoshoot.

See? Exceptionally cute.

(Well. Isn't she always?)

Sweet Maple

Maple is the oldest of the pet lambs this year, one of a set of triplets born on the 21st of February. The largest lamb was a brown boy, the smallest was a white girl called Hazel, and Maple was the middle child with a black face. The ewe was thin and had no milk so all three lambs became pets straight away. Eventually the boy was adopted onto another ewe, and her sister Hazel went to live on another farm. That leaves us with Maple. We went on a walk one beautiful, sunny evening.

We joined the ewes and lambs for sunset.

Rather than enjoying the sunset, the sheep were more interested in watching Maple.

Maple is a cutie pie so it's very understandable.

It was a beautiful evening for a walk.

Audrey, Laurel and Blossom Go Outside!

This lambing season the pet lambs just kept coming. Introducing this little trio of lovely ladies!

Wearing the mint snood is Laurel, born at some point in mid March. I didn't write down her date of birth at the time because she was with her mother (a Mule) and her sibling for the first week or so before she started to fall behind. She joined the pet lambs under their heat lamp and never looked back.

And this goofball is Blossom. Blossom is named after her mother, who showed no interest in her or her brother at all. She was born on 19th March.

And finally there is Audrey in lemon yellow. Audrey's mother was a Texel/Kerry Hill and her father is John the Texel. One busy morning with lots of births, Audrey's mother got confused and accidentally ended up with three lambs, one of which was not her own. She loved them all dearly but having three lambs is not practical for a ewe. A few days later a Mule ewe in the field lost her single lamb but she had lots of milk so we caught her and tried to adopt Audrey (the strongest of the "triplets" and one of the Kerry Hill ewe's legitimate lambs) and Dudley (now Ernesto, now living elsewhere... it's a long story) onto her. After a week the Mule still hadn't accepted Audrey and Dudley as her own, so pet lambs they became.

Audrey was very wild when she first became a pet, but after some gentle handling she now is a sweetheart and very calm around people.

This was the first time outside for these girls. There was lots to nibble on!

Blossom liked the straw.

Don't eat the rope, please, Audrey!

Peek-a-boo!

It was only mid March and I already had ten pet lambs to keep, and there was still over a month of lambing to go! There were a lot of milk bottles to make every day.