. . . and then there were three

Imagine our surprise when we arrived at the farm on Sunday to find three lovely lambs in the pen!
The owners have named them: Emily is the first, brown-faced little lamb; the white lamb we were calling Chloe has been named, 'Rosie'; and the newest little lambie is called Izzy.
Izzy was only four days old on Sunday. You can see remnants of her umbilical cord in some of the photos. Her mom had triplets and there wasn't enough milk for all three siblings, so she still gets to be one of three in her new home in the pen.
Enjoy the pictures - and a big welcome to Izzy!

Meet Emily Lamb!!!

We have a new friend!
Meet, EMILY LAMB!!!
Yesterday, we made our first pilgrimage to Ellenden Farm, in Harvington, near Evesham.

Our mission: to feed a newborn lamb by bottle.

Emily is two weeks old and lives at the bottom of the garden in a penned area to keep her safe.
She has two small, but quite up-to-the-challenge, Border Terrier guard dogs, Millie and Bramble.
They run about like loons, barking at anything that moves, protecting their young charge.

The lamb's mum didn't have enough milk to feed the triplets she had, so the farm's owners were accepting volunteers to feed her at specific times during the day.
We couldn't have been more excited if the Queen herself were offering a personal invitation to visit her!

Emily Lamb has been named by one of the farm children, a young lady of eight years, who named her after herself. Her surname, is of course, Lamb.

My patient husband has volunteered to be our driver, to and from the farm, for our shifts.
Now, we do not live close th this farm; we drive about 45 minutes to get to it.
So it is no small feat to volunteer to drive two crazy women to the country to feed a lamb.
Jim kept making tidy little comments about mint sauce all the way there! But we were not dismayed; we knew he has a soft spot for all animals, and he was just doing a bit of teasing.

Upon our arrival at the farm shop, we were ushered into the kitchen area and taught how to prepare the bottle for feeding 'our' lamb. We prepared it, and off we went to her pen.
We could hear her calling to us as we walked the short distance from the shop to Emily's garden.
Once inside the pen, Katie got right to work with the feed.

Emily was hungry!Bramble watches as Katie feeds Emily.
He needs to know his charge is being fed properly!

It only takes Emily minutes to devour her bottle. She has a very strong sense of sucking - she could pull the bottle right out of your hand if you didn't have a strong grip on it.
We were told that lambs give their mums a hard bump before feeding, in order to get the milk flowing! We were glad she decided not to do that with us.
Being a very playful lamb, she scampers away when finished, and she frolics around the pen, so happy that she has been fed.
But she takes a moment for a snuggle and a kiss.
We will bring more adventures of Emily Lamb to you as she grows and our bottle feeds continue!