The Victorious Lamb- poor one-eyed Walter

Poor Walter the lamb was attacked by a fox when he was only a few days old and had his left eye damaged. The skin around the eye was torn up and his tear duct was torn. His eye was so badly injured that poor Walter was blind in his left eye. He had several bites on his head and one on his side, but Walter was victorious and managed to escape the fox's clutches- probably with the help of his mother. When we saw poor Walter we had to decide whether to shoot him or try and save his life. We watched Walter for about 15 minutes to assess how he was doing. Walter was just walking around like he didn't have a care in the world and then went to his mother for a drink. We decided that he had a real fighting chance of survival and took him to the vet. Unfortunately, this decision made Walter an orphan, as he was hospitalised away from his mother for several days and because he had such a large complex wound he would not be able to be placed back into the paddock where the wound would get dirty and he may infect other sheep with the nasty bacteria that were infecting his wound. Walter moved into our house, with a lamb nappy and an eye patch.

Above is Walter's 'good side'. Below is Walter's 'bad side'.

This is Walter's injury after surgical debridement by the vet. A nasty gaping wound- you can see his eye on the very top of the wound- unfortunately it is blind and would have to be removed at a later date, according to the vet. The rest of the wound is a large tear in his face that required a little plastic surgery!

This season's lambs

Triplets! - Cerys makes up for her poor lambing record

Cerys, the fat chick of the sheep world, finally got lucky and got laid. Amazingly enough, she also got pregnant after two years of inability to produce an offspring. After a very long labour and a lot of discussion about whether we needed to call a vet or take matters into our own hands and reach for the Vaseline, Cerys gave birth to three healthy little lambs. She looks a little defeated in these photos! I guess she is thinking: "Why me? I was doing alright without this little 'life experience' "

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A couple of things we have learned from Cerys:

1) Fat sheep are not healthy sheep. Being fat reduces fertility, increases pregnancy risks, makes labour difficult and can make for big lambs- too big to be delivered naturally without risk to lamb and mother.

2) Never count a ewe out simply because she has failed to get pregnant the first time she is joined. She may need an extra year and a bit of a diet change!

3) Give a ewe who has had triplets at least a year's grace from lamb bearing to recover and rebuild condition- she probably needs two years if you are actually concerned about her welfare and not just her money making capacity.

4) Ewes who have multiple births need to have supplemental feeding to keep up with the milk demands of the lambs- these ewes lose condition very quickly.

5) The more lambs a ewe is carrying, the greater the risk of complications during labour and the higher the possibility the ewe will need assistance to lamb. Multiple lambs can get tangled up in each other during the birth.