down to two lambs

Checked on the sheep every couple of hours through the night - for the two ewes that could have started lambing, Sharona and her new borns, and little  Conan, being fed bottles. All well, no signs of labour, Sharona was keeping her charges snuggled, Conan taking his bottles with increasing eagerness.

Then himself wanders down at 730 for one last check before he drives off - comes hurtling back to tell me the largest lamb, Rogan, is missing from the field.  I dashed down with him and we search wildly.  She is in the new fenced off bit, with Josh looking completely non-plussed. But then, sheep can’t count.  We went back to where she was seen only one and a half hours ago, but no sign of him. We searched all over the orchard and new bit, and then outside in case he has snuck through a gap somewhere. Nothing. He has completely vanished.  We concluded something, a fox? had snatched him..

Then there was a bleat coming from where Sharona was lying… we walked  back. and there he was standing next to her, as if he had been there all along. But we checked! both of us!.  No idea where he was hiding, in such a small area too..

But then, after himself had driven off, I went to give Conan his bottle, as it was time. but he was still asleep.  I left him for a bit longer.. then tried again, this time waking him, but unlike yesterday evening, when he had become very keen on this bottle thing, headbutting me as if I was his mum and jumping out of his box and wagging his tail, now he was droopy and uninterested. He wouldn’t feed. Later we gave him another tube feed, but this time it did not turn things around. He continued to sleep, slept all day, and eventually died.

Particularly gutting as we had managed to bring him back from the brink once, and he had started to look really bouncy and cheeky, and as himself said, we had allowed ourselves to believe he would make it. We don’t know what went wrong, there was nothing overtly wrong.. maybe he picked up something, or maybe something was already wrong.

so a bit of a rollercoaster of  a day, and very anxious making for us being new to this. I just really hope the other two make it.  Worry a bit for Josh as he is a lot smaller than Rogan.  And I fret each time she wanders away from one of them.. But I know really I have to let her get on with it.

Knowing really doesn’t stop me fretting.