We had a lot of pet lambs this year - so many, in fact, that I've taken great pleasure in asking people how many pet lambs they have, waiting as they tell me about their handful of lambs, complain about the time and expense of feeding them. "What about you?" they ask. "Twenty-seven," I say casually, pausing to let that number sink in before adding, "but that's down from the thirty-five I had at one point."
Some were sold to other farmers and some were adopted by our own ewes, but we ended up with twenty-seven pet lambs. Madness. We've never had so many to feed. "How did you feed all of them?" is usually the next question. Dad and I held a bottle in each hand and fed the lambs in groups of four once they were sucking well. At our busiest I was making up eighteen litres of lamb milk a day.
When it came to playtime, with so many lambs, I didn't let them all out of their pens at once, rather in batches of four to eight. They all had their turns running up and down the shed, except on one Sunday when Dad and I decided to just let everyone out at once. The result was chaos. Cute chaos.
The photos just weren't doing the chaos justice so I took out my phone and filmed a video.
Dad with a favourite.
The competition for cuddles was fierce.
After their run around, the lambs got their evening feed. They were thirsty from all of that running around.
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