Raising Pet Lambs

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Following the interest in my last 'old' photo of feeding pet lambs, I thought I'd document a little more about that time of my life. During the lambing season, Dad would go round the lambing ewes regularly, mostly on horseback. He might need to assist a ewe that was having trouble giving birth or just help a weak lamb to have its vital first feed from the mother. Sometimes he'd find a little lamb stiff with cold. Other times the ewe might be dead. So he'd appear at the kitchen door and produce a tiny, grubby, sometimes almost frozen lamb from under his Army surplus greatcoat. Mum would wrap it in something warm and put it in a cardboard box with a hot water bottle and a rug of sorts. One of the cats might jump in to take advantage of the extra warmth. She would then warm some milk. She might add a little brandy and sugar. Often the lamb would be too weak to drink so she would massage the throat to encourage it to swallow. It might be two or three days before it would suck properly from a bottle. Once it seemed over the worst, it would be fed every few hours. It wouldn't be long before it would bleat at all hours when it was hungry. Mum had many a broken night's sleep getting up to feed a little lamb and reheat its water bottle. The photo is one of the pets which stayed around as it got older. Mostly, once it was weaned off milk, the pets went out in the mob.