Leg of Lamb

For reasons which will be explained in tomorrow’s post, maternity ward productivity on the farmlet remains at a stand-still. While I leave you to wonder what’s up with that, here is a blog post about this year’s first-born lamb. He had a little adventure all of his own.

Read on for a story about the leg of a lamb. It’s okay — nothing culinary.

Fluro accessorising for the Discerning Lamb About Town. Or in this case, in the Bottom Paddock.

See, that’s the leg we are talking about. The one with the bandage.

A few days after this little chap was born we noticed him limping. Puzzled as to what might be ailing someone so very new to the world, we asked Linda-Down-the-Lane if she would mind coming over to have a look. Linda-Down-the-Lane sold us our sheep, and she still kindly helps us out when sheep-wrangling tasks exceed our limited expertise. We are gradually learning the ropes, but this was a situation we thought best handed over to a Real Farmer.

On examination our consulting shepherd diagnosed a broken leg. We’re all at a bit of a loss as to how this happened, but Linda thought Broken Lambie’s mother may have accidentally sat on him. Careless!

Could this doting mother have been the cause of a broken lambie?

Well, there we were, with Linda holding 15kg+ of lamb, while Daredevil Deborah and I sprinted around looking for leg-mending materials at short notice. The options were fairly limited, but we managed to gather together a couple of sticks and a cohesive bandage with which to improvise a splint.

Linda cuddled our patient, who seemed quite relaxed. He even had a little nap while I played at being vet. One thing about living with a menagerie is that you do get a bit of practice at impromptu animal repair. The last time I stabilised a broken a leg it was with similar materials. That crippled white chicken made a good recovery, so we felt cautiously confident that our makeshift splint would do the trick.

Splint removed, Mended Lambie sneaks up behind one of the twins to say ‘BOO’.

And it did. We removed the splint last weekend, and little lamb seems quite well-mended. I spotted him this morning bouncing around with the young twins looking for all the world as if we’d replaced his leg with a spring. The wonderful thing about baby lambs is… they heal up fast.

Anyone else been fixing things? Next on my list is a tea towel with a hole.