I never can predict when owning Soay sheep will enrich my life in a new and different way. Last Wednesday an e-mail showed up out of the blue that read, in total: “Here is a photo of Yorkshire soay in the snow and being bottle fed.” That’s it, no signature, no mailing address, no explanation of why I was the beneficiary of the photographs, […]
Will Rogers once said, “The best doctor in the world is the veterinarian. He can’t ask his patients what is the matter–he’s got to just know.” Will Rogers was right, but his vet almost certainly relied on a good thermometer as a substitute for a patient interview. When we have a listless lamb, one who is not up […]
Allow me a brief detour from the Lamb Kit to introduce Llucy, our guard llama. Steve took this picture last lambing season. I was watching a new lamb cavorting when without warning Llucy snuck up behind me, I felt warm damp air on my neck, just barely heard a soft shwoosy sound, and I was nose […]
Dousing a newborn lamb’s umbilical cord in iodine as soon as possible after birth is an inexpensive way to guard against infection. After a few weeks when our lambs go back out into the pasture, they have to fend for themselves as far as scrapes and cuts go; it is not cost-effective to treat them […]
When I looked at the first draft of this post I nearly cancelled the whole blog in despair. Nitrile gloves — now there’s a headline grabber. If I did not lose you to generalized boredom, I was sure to lose you to a bad case of MEGO. Then I remembered the “dance” I describe here, the task where the […]
Anticipation, excitement, and a certain tension are in the air – a sure sign it is almost time for lambing to begin. When we start getting edgy about all we have left to do before the first lamb appears, one of us inevitably asks how we are doing on supplies and equipment. On a rainy […]