Day 20...almost there!

In the blink of an eye we went from 160+ still to lamb at our "open afternoon" last Saturday to only 23 today!
It has been without a doubt the fastest lambing have ever had and it has been exhausting with the night shift ending anything between 3am and even 5.45am on one occasion... marathon 22 hour shift! The worst bit is keeping on top of the ewes and lambs in the "special care unit" and any other problems while the routine goes on around us but the majority of the lambs are now out in the fields and thriving and anyone walking in the area can't fail to see them as they are split into groups of 50-60 and cover virtually the whole farm.

As to Churchill, he is 3 weeks old today and has grown large and solid but he still lurches from one near death experience to another every few days. He seems particularly incapable of maintaining his body temperature in the normal range of 38-39 degrees and for him, "normal" seems to be 35-36. In theory, he should not be able to function at that level of hypothermia but he skips about and plays with the other lambs. He's certainly a paradox. I suspect he has far more developmental problems than those that are immediately visible and there are no guarantees that he will survive but if I can just nurse him over the next two weeks and get him on solid food and nibbling a bit of grass then we will be almost home and dry. Bottle fed lambs must be weaned at 5 weeks of age as they get bloat if they are on formula milk after that age and that is a serious and life-threatening condition in a lamb.
I will let you know how he does.