The Soay Sheep Chronicles

Please welcome the smallest viable British Soay sheep ever born on our farm –OR119-360.  Is it any wonder we named him “Peanut”? Here he is the day he was born — all 1 pound 15 ounces of him:

tiny British Soay lamb at age ~6 hours

[Note: click on any picture to see a bigger version] We may eventually give this little guy one of our “official” names, but you can see why his unofficial name fits him to a T.  He is almost a half pound smaller than any British lamb we’ve ever had. He had a scary beginning to life in the big world.  Steve had jugged his mother, Rivington, and her small ram lamb.  It was not until an hour or so later that Steve walked around the Maternity Ward making one last check for lambs and he heard a faint sound – like muted squalling — coming from under the accumulated hay on the floor.  Sure enough, Peanut had somehow burrowed his way into the hay and was lying there shivering and wondering how he had gotten lost – and his mother apparently had forgotten about him.

Thankfully, when Steve put Peanut in with Rivington and his twin brother, she immediately accepted Peanut.  Once Steve had taken his temperature (a frighteningly low 98.2F) and given him a slug of Baby Lamb Strength to quick-start his internal furnace, he knew exactly what he wanted and where to get it and headed right back to the udder.  One of the remarkable things about Peanut is his vigor – he’s been healthy, had all his parts fully formed, and ready to venture out into the world from the minute he got that first slug of colostrum.  In terms of health, there is nothing about him that is compromised because of his size.

But … his eartag is quite another matter.  Regular readers will recall  it was only a couple of months ago that I went on and on about how wonderful the Dalton Minis and Supersmalls are for the Soay breed — small enough for the Soay lambs to accommodate without dragging the ears down.  I need to go back and revise that post.  Even the nearly weightless Daltons are too heavy for a less-than-2-pound lamb’s ears:

Peanut's eartag is too heavy!

Here courtesy of EweTube is a more animated look at Peanut’s floppy little tag:

I’ve struggled to find ways to demonstrate how small a less-than-2-pound lamb is (Peanut of course has no idea he’s small), but here’s a pretty good comparison – wee lamb investigating small adult female hand:

at age 5 days, Peanut is hand sized

two-pound stud muffin Peanut

When Peanut was just six days old, I captured him with his twin, already posing for the camera:

curious miniature twin Soay lambs

Doesn’t Peanut’s twin look positively huge by comparison?  He weighed only 3 pounds 3 ounces at birth, not exactly a giant.  The two of them are forever exploring their new world, thank goodness, and nothing seemed quite as interesting on their 9th day as the big water bucket, placed safely high, in the nursery:

small twins, big bucket

That same day we put Peanut and his twin out in an open area with one of the other lambs from our first round, a stunning grey ram lamb we’ve named Chester.  Chester is only 8 days older than Peanut, but look at the size difference — Chester weighed in at 5 pounds 6 ounces at birth, almost 3 times as large as Peanut – whew!  Chester and Peanut, by the way, have become great buddies, as you can see.

The Three Amigos

Peanut's new buddy, Chester

Peanut continues to pose whenever he can.  To close this photographic journey into the land of the Soay Lilliputians, here are my  favorite pictures of Peanut … so far.

I am Peanut - hear me roar!

2-week old breeder-in-waiting

Peanut wants me to tell you that he is one of our line-cross British Soay ram lambs, so he is a candidate to breed for us in a couple of years.  He also wants you to know he is ready, willing, and able, and is asking for your support in the upcoming election!

Peanut at 3 and 1/2 weeks

For now …

No one believes me when I tell them our ewes are noisy eaters, much less that you can watch the hay level drop in the feeders when fully pregnant ewes are at the trough. Thanks to my dandy new video cam, I can now document our ill-mannered ladies. True, they are particularly eager eaters right now because the demands on their system, like their bellies, are growing. To say they love a little alfalfa thrown into the mix is a gross understatement. For Soay sheep, alfalfa hay is the equivalent of … hmm … a fork-tender prime rib? a flawless flourless chocolate cake? a box of Harry & David’s dark chocolate truffles? a (real) truffle omelette cooked in butter? Have a listen:

Until this year, we have always supplemented our ewes in late pregnancy with a bit of grain or beet pellets, but to be honest, it is a lot of work to feed lots of ewes with grain buckets. Distributing just a wee bit of alfalfa flakes along with the regular hay is way easier, and less expensive, too. My resident biologist tells me alfalfa is also more “natural” in the sense that sheep are grass eaters, and alfalfa is in the grass family, unlike grain and especially beet pulp, which are farther removed from the diet sheep are accustomed to, especially Soay sheep, who survived for thousands of years on the St. Kilda grass.

And even if it were a close call on cost and hassle factor for the shepherds, the matrons’ vote is the clincher: they are delighted with the menu change.

For now …