Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Lucky but unlucky lamb


On Monday afternoon after my brother and I had finished school Mum went down to feed the horses and check up on the sheep who are due to lamb. But then the horrible weather came, it was bucketing down with rain and the sky looked a terrible grey color. Bad weather is usually the main cause for dead lambs so we try to save as many as possible, but there was one lamb from a set of twins that wasn't very healthy at all it was obvious to anyone. The lamb didn't get up or move an inch, the other however, was perfectly fine a very healthy young lamb. I helped Mum pick up the lamb and put it into the small yellow container which was just a perfect fit for him to lie down into, we put a soft towel down and a woolen coat on the lamb (these coats were specially made for lambs) My hair was soaked and I was still in my uniform which was drenched with rain but I just didn't care a thing about that. I got to carry the lamb inside and put him by the heat-pump, since we don't have anything with direct heat. Mum started to light the fire and them we tried tube-feeding it milk which is the most horrible way ever! I held the lamb, which was half asleep and Mum put the tube down it's throat and hopefully into it's stomach. But the thing was that you can't put it too far otherwise it will kill the lamb. It was a very risky task so Mum was anxious. On the instructions it said it was a very simple task but it also said in bold letters: YOU CAN NOT PASS IT TOO FAR BUT IT IS IMPORTANT TO PASS IT FAR ENOUGH. We gave up on that, because you weren't supposed to be able to hear the lamb breathing but we could still hear his breath through the end of the Reviver. So we used anything we could find in the house to support heat for the little lamb, I decided to name him "Lucky" Mum said that this would be a great name if he was going to survive and what were the chances of that? If there were any. I gave him my hot water bottle and Wheat-bag which helped little. The fire really gave him heat. We tried again with the tubing when Dad arrived home from work. It was unsuccessful so we tried with just the normal milk bottle but he wasn't swallowing it was just going into his mouth and dribbling out the sides. A little bit went in but hardly enough to feed Lucky. We had to keep waking him so he didn't fall asleep and die. He had his eyes closed the whole time and was a floppy as a rag-doll. All we could do was wait and see. In the morning my brother woke me up at like 6:30am this is WAY too early even for me. We went to see the lamb with little hope in our hearts, he was still by the fireplace still in his coat and with my green beach-towel wrapped around his body. He wasn't breathing, wasn't moving. I gave him a slight rub on his half full belly, but he didn't move at all. This brought tears to my eyes, and I said to it "I'm sorry, sorry that we couldn't do anything for you, we tried but it wasn't enough." I know talking to a lamb may be a little weird especially since it was a dead lamb but I said it anyway. I guess Lucky wasn't so Lucky after all.

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