We found a tiny new lamb yesterday (one of the last we’ll have this year) by virtue of her incredible lungs!

I spent most of the day rototilling, but on a break from the noise, I heard a most distressing non-stop bawling from the pasture and went to check it out. I was fearful I had a lamb stuck in the electric net, but instead I found the tiniest little black baby crying her heart out in the most piercing tone. Bitsy, as she just had to be named, was near her mom, a petite Jacob named Zambia who occasionally mumbled a response to her. But the lamb wouldn’t stop calling nevertheless.

Sweet little Bitsy with lungs of steel!

Generally a new lamb crying that hard is hungry, so I caught the little thing up and bottled her to make sure she had some nourishment. Bitsy had a nice strong sucking reflex, which was encouraging, but when I sat in the grass to observe her interaction with her mom it wasn’t clear to me that she knew how to nurse. Plus, she seemed sort of loosely bonded to Zambia, a first time mom, and kept wandering up to other ewes, screaming at them for attention.

She didn’t like it, but Zambia is small enough that Shannon just picked her up and carried her into a private pen.

To be safe, we gathered up mom and baby into a pen in the barn so we could help them stick together and watch them a bit easier over the course of the day. I held Zambia still while I tried to get the lamb to nurse, so I could see if she had it figured out. Bitsy refused to suck and continued to wail. So I bottled her again in the evening, but by the last check at nightfall I was thrilled to see her underneath her mom, quiet and working away at her udder. Sometimes it just takes a while to get the whole thing rolling. This morning, the first check of the day revealed them curled up nestled together, asleep and quiet in their pen. Ah, peace.

There’s nothing more alarming and stress-inducing than the cry of a needy baby and that Bitsy was wearing us all out yesterday – sheep included. Here’s a video of her in the afternoon, just after we moved the two into their pen. Zambia does nothing but eat (I’m sure she was famished after her delivery) while Bitsy just bawls away. The other moms (including Ruby, a rather selfish ewe who abandoned her own lamb a month ago) and babies can’t help but answer her!