The Bruiser, Torpedos, and Ladies in Waiting

Bruiser was born Tuesday afternoon, fought through a night in the barn, and by Wednesday afternoon had learned to drink from a bottle. She was doing so well. The mistake must have been changing the dressing. It appeared to be doing more harm than good, so I left the wound open to dry. Even with renewed dressing and penicillin, Bruiser passed away yesterday afternoon (Thursday).    

The other lambs are doing well.  Matthew was sent on a mission to feed two of the quads. "How will I know which ones?" he asked. 

"Just put the bottles down where they can reach and call. They'll come," the Big Guy answered.

When Matthew came back in the house he was pleased and a little surprised. "They were just like torpedos, Dad! All I did was call and they came as fast as they could! You really have to hold on to those bottles." So now our little bottle babies are fondly called the Twin Torpedos.

And these...are the ladies in waiting.   So goes life on the farm.

Kitchen Lamb

There's a lamb in the house this morning. I don't know if she's going to make it, but she's one of the toughest fighters we've ever seen.

I'll try to keep this short. She was born and left to the side yesterday afternoon. When I found her, she was so cold, I couldn't pry her mouth open to intubate her. The tube had to be slipped in the side of her mouth and maneuvered into place. We put the heat lamp dangerously close and, an hour and a half later, she was on her feet. Every time she tried to nurse, she was bumped aside. When she lay on the ground for too long, her mother pawed viciously, trying to get her up. Bruiser kept trying to nurse, but was an absolute underdog: tiny, frail, fighting, but failing.

Here's Ryan's rendition of the evening (Bruiser and one sibling were delivered early in the afternoon. Eight-year-old Ryan picks up the story around 4:45 p.m.):

"Well, it all started when Elva and her friend came to our house to see the baby lambs. They were checking them out and right when they were about to leave, I saw Bruiser's mama was going to have more babies. The first one was a goner. My mom swung it around, and shaked it, and almost did CPR. And then she said, 'I'll check if she has another one.' And, she did. She had one more. Mom had just put iodine on the little, little baby (Bruiser) and it crawled on the new baby and that was the most colorful lamb--yellow, blue, purple, red, just like a rainbow. And of course, then Elva and her friend went home.

Mom said, 'We'll check on them after supper.' So we did. And that little lamb was very, very, very cold. Dad tried just rubbing on her and blood came out her side. We decided to try a few things--like stitches and glue--because there was a cut. Nothing worked. So went to go to bed. In the morning, we thought it would be dead.  We hoped it wouldn't, but we thought it would.

But, in the morning, Mom went out, found the baby, and it was standing there by the bucket, alive.  She brang it in. And now it's lying down, resting, in a box, with a blanket over it.  The end."

More to come....