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 always have replacement milk laying around and a few bottles. Thankfully the little lamb took to the bottle right away. 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. However, I can’t discourage my son’s love for the sheep. After all, this farm will be his one day if he wants it. So I put an extra space heater in the stall and I broke out the sleeping bags. I carefully explained heater safely to my son. It is important that he understands that portable heaters like this must be handled correctly and turned off correctly. We don’t want to start a barn fire. He listened very carefully and we all slept pretty warmly out in the barn. I was happy to see the little lamb was still alive in the morning. I was also happy that my son was the one who turned off the space heater first thing in the morning and then he put it away safely. I think he will make a good farmer one day.
