Miniature Soay lamb grows up
It seems Peanut has a fan club. Almost every week I get either an email or an in-person question about whether he survived, is he okay, what’s his fate, and so forth. Most creatures wait until they are a little older to use up their 15 minutes of fame.
Peanut stayed in the high, dry feeding area with his twin and mother much longer than most lambs. We like to get them out on green pasture as soon as possible in the spring. But since Peanut started life at under two pounds, we decided to keep him on milk and let him play at eating hay until we were sure he could make the transition to milk and grass. Our friends Leslie and Dennis took this picture.
Peanut as a scrawny lamb
Recently I was down in the ram area taking pictures of rams going to new homes this fall when I noticed Peanut mugging for the camera. Can you tell which ram he is?
Where's Peanut?
Peanut is over on the right, sporting yellow tape on his horns. The disgusted look on his face is because he and his buddies were forced to leave their lush grass for a few hours while we sorted out rams going to new homes.
You wouldn’t think a sheep that started as small as Peanut would need identifying tape, but he’s now the same size as some of our smaller 2011 rams and we still want to keep an eye on him. And not just for his own health reasons, either. A few weeks ago he figured out what ovine puberty means. While he was still with the “little kids group” we were surprised to see him paying way too much attention to the mother of the twins, the only adult ewe in the group. Off to the ram pen he went!
Peanut has nice conformation
At this point, we are confident Peanut, a line-cross full British ram, will be ready to breed when his year comes up. Until then, he’ll figure out how to fend for himself amongst the big boys. We probably haven’t seen the last of his escapades.
For now …