Nine Lives?

Well, using my best Jethro cipherin' skills, I figger that Sunshine has to have used up at least four of her lives so far. Between nearly dying when she was first born, two bouts of pneumonia and yesterday wedging herself somewhere that no lamb should possibly been able to go and getting stuck in the blazing sun in the middle of the afternoon next to a black barn, it's a miracle she's still with us...and ornery as ever - probably the only thing that has kept her going.

Her latest crisis du jour (see, I'm still speaking french ;-) is that between her being weak and sickly so much of her almost three weeks, her momma has stopped producing tons of milk. Heidi's doing the best she can, but I can tell Sunshine's hungry - she tries to nurse anything that she can put in her mouth. The logical thing would be to get her started on a supplementary bottle, so I headed over to a friends to get some goat milk.

First off though, let me tell you this story. I built a small creep feeder in her ICU stall last week. She went in there immediately (her own idea) and started munching lamb feed. Oh good I thought, this will work perfect. Later in the day when I was making yet another check on her, I stuck her in there myself. Oh brother. "Don't you tell me what to do!" and she hasn't gone back in since.

So, I've made three or four attempts on the bottle over a couple days. Tried different bottles, nipples, buckets... Again with the attitude - ears back, head up, defiant tilt to the jaw.



Interestingly, I've only had one other sheep that belligerent - Punkin - and he too was a sickly lamb with at least nine lives who probably should never have lived to maturity. Here she is (via camera phone) taking a nap in one of her other feed tubs this morning.

Her idea...obviously.