A few years ago, my parents were driving across the state line to visit a gas station so that they could buy lottery tickets. (Our state doesn't have a lottery.) It was cold and dark and my mother had to swerve to miss what appeared to be a large white cat. Well, my father, whose eyesight is comparable to that of an eagle, decided that it was no cat and that my mother needed to turn the car around and go save whatever it was from the busy traffic. My mother goes up the road a bit, turns the vehicle around, and comes back upon the white animal in the road. She stops the car, opens her door, and grabs a four legged animal up into her arms. Because a car was coming behind her, she got back inside her vehicle and handed the bundle of fur to my father who sat in the passenger seat. They head back the way they were originally going and upon arriving at their destination, the light from the gas station revealed that they had rescued a lost lamb that couldn't be more than a few days old. It was calm and my father wrapped it up in a jacket they kept in the back seat. After getting lotto tickets, they drove home in shock and called me up to their house. When I saw it I couldn't believe my eyes. It was like looking at a baby unicorn. It's hair was white as snow. A pink glossy nose and little black hooves were the only points of color save for his dark brown eyes. I wasn't expecting to find a lamb in my father's lap. I immediately start to panic because I knew it would stay with us throughout the night. What did lambs eat? Would it survive without its mother? Was it underweight or sick? The only thing that could help me was to do a search on the internet. Many people are force to hand raise lambs because they are born in sets of twins or triplets and sometimes the mothers cannot provide enough milk. So, luckily, there were a lot of instructions. I mixed up a batch of colostrum using egg yolks and milk and put the liquid into a baby bottle. Upon tasting the bottle, the little lamb seemed to liven and shook his tail wildly as if it were the best thing to ever happen to him.
I found a recipe for milk that involved buttermilk, evaporated milk, and whole milk so that the fat content would be high enough to resemble sheep's milk. I fed the lamb religiously every two hours, then four, and so on. I bought disposable diapers and duct taped them in such a way that they worked wonderfully.
Well, days turned into months; months turned into years. And not only did I raise one lamb, I raised two. Lambs are best raised in pairs or more so that when they get older they will challenge each other instead of their humans. Getting head butted or nudged by the seemingly docile creatures is cute at times, but can be quite dangerous. I found the second lamb online and he needed hand raised because his mother had abandoned him in a gorge on a farm. We had already decided to name the white lamb "Lotto" for obvious reasons. The second lamb, who was speckled with dark brown markings, we named "Lucky." He was not the brightest crayon in the box, but he kept Lotto company. Lotto, on the other hand, was a certified genius. Both sheep were of the Katahdin breed, which meant that they had no need to be sheared. Both sheep transitioned to eating grass fairly easy.
Both sheep also treated me like their mother. Hand feeding creates a special bond. The sheep grow to see you as a source of food, safety, and comfort. Everywhere I walked they followed. If I sat down on the grass, so did they.
Thank goodness for that, because it made hoof maintenance all the more easy. Hand raising lambs takes a lot of dedication and hard work, but it pays off. Sheep are incredibly full of personality and love and I am definitely glad I had the opportunity to raise two of them.