we have good news and bad...

look who arrived in the early hours of this morning.....

a beautiful little boy....

and now for the bad news....

sadly his mama has no milk and as such just got up and left him ...

the lovely lady took him to her neighbour who keeps sheep and he was given a bottle of feed and artificial colostrum...
this will be good for him but he really, really needs milk from a ewe as it will carry so much goodness and antibodies..

the plan is to try and get one of the sheep ladies other ewes to take him on for a few days, he has been put to one ewe but she really did not want him...

one other ewe is due anytime now so as soon as she gives birth and if she has only one lamb our boy will be rubbed in the necessary and placed at her side...

we then have the tricky situation of what to do with him?
he cannot stay with the sheep lady as hers are meat sheep and will be fed very differently, and she would rather her lamb had all the milk understandably...

stephen and i have been chatting about very little else all day...

we think the best situation is to have him castrated with the view to him joining the crew of last years lambs we have here...
he will then at least have a merry band of forever playmates :)

the only other option is to keep him entire and pop him in with boris or rodders but the thought of angry rams fighting makes me wary...

and adding to it all we will never use him for breeding as he is not a pure shetland....

so
we are basically still thinking about it!

tomorrow we hope to visit at feeding time so i can partake in a little lamb cuddling...

or even better we hope to visit and see him suckling at his surrogate mama..
receiving all the nutrients he so needs..

t x