One Plucky Lamb

The "lame lamb" described in the previous post has made a remarkable turnaround from yesterday afternoon. It seems spending several hours in a basket next to a fire, combined with a stomach full of warm milk, has done wonders for his health. By this morning, he was bleating like any other lamb --- and climbing out of the laundry basket. He reared up, put his front feet on the top of the basket, and then toppled the thing over.

I gave him about 3oz of goat milk first thing this morning, with a bit more cod liver oil, and then moved him outside to a portable dog cage within the sheep area. (These dog cages are incredibly handy as "holding pens" for confining various small livestock, including birds on butchering day.)

A few minutes ago, I went back out to check on him. I'm not sure he likes being demoted back to "sheep", but we're glad to have him out of the house. He sucked down another 3oz of milk, and definitely has the whole bottle thing figured out. Looks like our 11 year old will be able to take it from here.

I'm still not sure what this lamb's long term prospects will be. Note how bad his right front leg looks:

He's getting around surprisingly well, despite that bum leg. And I'm hoping that vitamin and mineral supplements will help improve it. But at least we know we're doing everything in our means to get him off to the best possible start.