Lambs
have a very high cute factor. There are very few people who can
resist saying “awwww” to any lamb under four months old. Under a
month of age, they look small and defenseless; always an appealing state
to humans. From then on, their antics, their leaping and
frolicking, are just downright amusing; appealing to us in a different
way. This is true of any lamb, but we humans are especially drawn
to the bottle lambs that have bonded with us in a special way. We have
replaced their mothers and it is to us, directly, that they look for
nourishment, warmth, cleanliness, and affection, the latter being what
heightens their cute factor. Bottle lambs like to be cuddled, they
like the closeness of our voices and our body heat, they like being
scratched and stimulated physically and, even in this, we have replaced
the bottle lamb’s mother to some degree.
There
are many reasons a lamb may become a bottle lamb. It's mother may have
died giving birth, or the lamb may have been rejected at birth by a
mother drawn more to the other siblings. Some lambs become bottle
lambs after the first few days of their life simply because their
mothers are unable to produce enough milk, perhaps because she has given
birth to two or more lambs, perhaps because half of her udder is
non-productive. Then there are the young ewe lambs giving birth for the
first time, who may simply have no idea about motherhood and walk away
from their young. The bottle lambs that have never suckled at the
nipple have not received colostrum from the mother and, during the first
24 hours of their lives, they have special needs beyond just milk.
Colostrum is the thin yellowish fluid secreted by the mammary glands at
the time of parturition that is rich in antibodies and minerals,
preceding the production of true milk. Newborn lambs, even those
destined for bottles, must have colostrum to survive and flourish.
Whatever the reason for the lamb needing to be bottle-fed to survive,
most shepherds have a strong motivation to keep these young lambs alive.
We keep sheep in order to, with hope, make money each year. We
raise meat lambs. Everything born here is destined for the meat
market, except our breeding stock and any ewe lambs that we consider
good enough to include in our herd. In order to get them to
market, they first have to survive.
There
is no certainty in sheep, other than the fact that we will sell all
saleable lambs at a certain age and/or weight. There are no
guarantees with sheep either, no guarantee that each year will be
profitable, no guarantee that each ewe will produce two healthy lambs.
In fact, it sometimes seems as if sheep need no excuse to just lay down
and die. No sane person would invest their time, energy and money
into something as unpredictable as sheep without accepting the
uncertainties involved. Well, I suppose there is one
certainty: no-one will ever get rich by raising just a few sheep.
