My daughters saw a sheep walk by our sliding door this morning. This is no surprise because our pasture runs right up to the house. If you walk out the back door, you are in the pasture. But they quickly noticed that this sheep still had afterbirth coming out. So they ran to the barn and I ran after the sheep. She had just dropped twins, but was not being very motherly. First, I was concerned that she had left the barn. Second, when she returned, she was too preoccupied with eating hay, and not cleaning up her babies. Third, she was headbutting the babies. We see this a lot when a lamb bothers the wrong ewe. So, I made a decision that I try to avoid whenever I can. We brought the babies into the house.

The first concern is to get them warm. We always bring them to the woodstove and rub them vigorously with a towel. The girl responded quite well, but the boy was a bit sluggish. We also give them a drench, which is a nutrient dense source of energy to give them a good start. Slowly but surely, we were able to get them properly nursing from a bottle. Whiskey, our dog, was ever so curious about them. We used that as an excellent training opportunity for her.

Elisha kept exclaiming, “Baby! Baby!” Even Noah was excited to meet the new babies and stroked and pulled on the little boy’s ears. Holly is very good at feeding them. She has a natural ability with animals, and is brave enough to pull the big boys around by the horns! Sadie loves wrapping the lambs up in towels and pretending she’s their momma. She even baaas at them.

It took about an hour but we were finally able to get them vigorously nursing and drinking a suitable amount. They needed to drink at least 4 ounces every 4 hours at first. That means that just as my baby, Noah, was beginning to sleep through the night, I’ll have to get up and feed more babies.

Here’s some quick lamb facts for you:

• Sheep are mammals, which means that they drink their mother’s milk.
• Sheep have split hooves, and the newborns have such cute little hooves.
• Lambs are on their feet within about fifteen minutes of birth, usually within a couple minutes.
• The mothers are called ewes, and they clean up their lambs soon after birth. They smell their baby, so they can recognize it later.
• A ewe will often push away a lamb that is not their own.
• A typical lamb will weigh about 5-7 pounds at birth, and will gain weight fast. They begin trying to eat hay and grass within a month.
• If a sheep will have horns, you can feel little horn buds on their head right at birth. The horns grow fast and can be an inch long within a month or two.

Our little guys were soon up and around, running all over the living room, and little lambs do the same thing little human babies do. They leave puddles.

So we have them nicely settled in our dog kennel in a corner of our kitchen. They are still pretty close to the woodstove, and easily accessible when it’s time for them to eat. We can go about our day, knowing they are safe.

I do plan to try to take them back to momma later this afternoon. In my experience, this is usually unsuccessful, but I would rather try, just in case she will still raise them. We’ll see. Update: We have decided it is too risky to take them back to the barn. The cold bitter winds we have right now are definitely not in their favor.

We decided to call them Kit and Kat, after the Dutch twins in the story we just finished reading. Kit, the boy, has the dark black circles around his eyes.

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