I woke this morning to a most unusual scene in my stone calving barn.

I’d expected to see Polly with a circle of lambs, but instead I found Prissy and June tag-team cleaning three lambs, just born and not yet nursing.

Prissy, large but not quite as Polly, had given birth to the babies, two ewes and a ram, but June, who seems to have somehow avoided getting pregnant in the fall, was helping to lick them off and acting every bit as responsible as Priss for the little ones. I know that it’s quite common to “graft” rejected babies onto willing moms who have lambs themselves – a favorite James Herriott BBC episode illustrates just this situation. But I’ve never had it happen on my place. And should one bond to June, will it go to Prissy to nurse?

When I came into the barn at about 7 am, two of the lambs were up and walking, though still damp in their birthing fluids. In fact, the ram lamb was walking out into the yard all by himself! But another little ewe was laying limp under the hay rack – not far away from the moms, but not being attended to. I rigged up a heat lamp over the whole group, put the lagging lamb by the moms and freshened up the bedding around them. But I didn’t want to be too intrusive because the bonding situation with the smallest lamb seemed quite tenuous. Plus, I didn’t want to disturb whatever fragile relationship was developing between the whole odd group. Sheep are pretty skittish and Prissy is one of my more stand-offish ones.

Unfortunately, neither mom appeared that interested in the weak lamb. I wiped her vigorously a few times with a clean towel, both to dry her off and to elicit some response. She was very much alive and vocal, but unable to stand and very chilled. So I’ve brought her in to warm up and have a first suck of colostrum (frozen from last year’s milking goats) in front of the fire. In the house she’s done very well, standing up and sucking strongly, so I think she’ll get a coat and we’ll head back out now to see what’s developed down in the barn…