My son found a newborn lamb in our field today.
Its mother had abandoned it.
I have no idea why. This is the first lamb of the season so I don’t have any other ewes I can put her with. My son decided that he would care for the lamb himself. I consistently have updatement milk kneeling around and a few bottles. Thankfully the little lamb took to the bottle immediately. It is still touch and go when the lambs are this young. My son knows this and he decided that he is going to sleep in the barn with the newborn lamb last night. It is cold in the barn even though we have barn heaters. If it was up to me I would just blanket the little lamb and put him in one of the stalls near the barn heater, and however, I can’t discourage my son’s cherish for the sheep. After all, this farm will be his one day if he wants it. So I put an extra space heating system in the stall and I broke out the sleeping bags. I carefully explained heating system safely to my son. It is important that he understands that portable furnaces like this must be handled properly and turned off properly. We don’t want to start a barn fire. He listened actually carefully and we all slept pretty warmly out in the barn. I was glad to see the little lamb was still alive in the day. I was also glad that my son was the one who turned off the space heating system first thing in the day and then he put it away safely. I guess he will make a great farmer one day.