Lockdown Days 2, 3 and 4

On Thurdsay and Friday, I woke up earlier than usual and was wide awake. No chance of going back to sleep. I realised I did this during the earthquakes too.

It made me wonder if it's a stress reaction or some kind of evolutionary response to a dangerous situation. There have been memes around suggesting that we're designed in such a way that there will always be someone in the tribe who is awake and able to respond to anything that might threaten the safety and wellbeing of the tribe. I have no way to fact check the meme and a Google search turned up only information on insomnia.

As Friday wore on, I noticed that I was experiencing the vertigo I also suffered from during the earthquakes. I was dizzy while sitting still. I was not going to be doing much that day.

Three different video chats to my family around the country took care of that.

I also discovered that I can't watch the daily updates as they happen. I'm quite okay with getting it in digest form on the evening news.

Saturday and Sunday saw Hubby at home. He got to join in the video chats, and had me call Dad on a video call later on to double check a renovation.

So he was clearly busy renovating all weekend.  There was a set of badly fitting French doors between the lounge and dining room. We almost never used them and they were drafty in Winter.

They are now a solid wall that just requires plaster and paint.

We always write something inside the walls when we change things. We often find things written by previous renovators, even if it's only measurements and calculations, but sometimes it's signed. It's something simple that brings a smile when found.

Today our message was dated with a note about Covid-19 lockdown. Just as we were about to seal it in, we learned about New Zealand's first Covid fatality, so I quickly added a note about that. I don't know what some future renovator will think when or if they find it.

I've been spinning plenty while video chatting. I'm just not made to sit still. This has led to a request from my sister and an offer to put my practice efforts (in most things I make) to use. So between that and plans to make jerseys for everyone this year (whether or not they end up looking like a Molly Weasley special), I think I'll have enough to keep me busy for a while.

Lockdown Day 1

So we've gone into lockdown for COVID-19.  We knew it was coming and had a couple of days notice, so we started to make plans.

On his way to work the day before, Hubby stopped into a hardware store to buy supplies for his planned projects during lockdown.  Then he discovered that his workplace is considered essential, so he's having to work.  I guess there are three rooms that won't get painted just yet, and finishing off the IBCs in the shelter belts can wait.  On the plus side, there's no contact with the public.

First day and I found I was restless fairly early on in the day.  So I thought to myself, the rose hips are coming ripe, there's still some elderberries around and I should see what blackberries the birds and drought have left.  I should go foraging.

I had it in mind to make some rose hip and thyme cough syrup.  If COVID-19 does hit us, it will be useful.

I knew Hubby had sprayed some of the gorse and blackberry, but he did it a few weeks ago.  We were well past the withholding period.  Anything that was surviving and anything nearby that might have received some overspray should be okay.

Off I went and picked a fair few rose hips, a handful of blackberries and I found maybe 6 bunches of elderberries that I could reach. It wasn't a big haul but there were enough rose hips to make syrup and I could freeze the other berries for use later.

Back at the house, I stripped the elderberries off the stalks and separated the berries into their different types. Then Hubby rang.  I told him what I'd done and he freaked out.  Unbeknownst to me, he'd been out on Sunday and sprayed again. Some of where I'd picked was where he'd sprayed and since they were all mixed up, I had to throw the lot out.

Best laid plans and all that.

Determined to at least do something that I could call productive, instead I went back to some spinning and knitting.  This was interspersed with video calls from family.  Granddaughter number two will have a blanket finished by the time she's into a big girl's bed.  Maybe by the end of this, I'll be able to walk into my craft room without clambering over piled up big rubbish bags full of washed fleece.  Maybe the two and a half fadges and four feed sacks waiting to be washed might get sorted too.

We'll see how we go.

Water for Sheep

A long dry North Canterbury summer puts a strain on water resources.  This happens every year.  Our stock water comes from the neighbour through some scheme that I don't fully understand.  I believe he pumps it from the creek and stores it in tanks.  When it was first set up, there was a bylaw requiring you to provide water to your neighbours and I believe most of the neighbours were on the scheme.  This has gradually shrunk to be only us and the guy over the road who also has tanks to store excess water in.

We don't have tanks, we rely on water being available all the time.  It's been a source of many discussions and arguments and plans that have never come to anything.  We've never needed to do much, because while the water runs out every year, it's usually for a very short time and we manage to get by fine when that happens.

Until this year.

The neighbour who runs the scheme has a few health issues that have made him somewhat forgetful and confused a lot of the time. He does some odd things and forgets he's done them.  Between that, the drought conditions and the pump running when there's no water and subsequently burning out, we haven't had water in at least a month.

The layout of our paddocks and the site of our house tank makes running lines from our house water supply unrealistic. There is one trough running off our house water, because running a line from the scheme would mean expecting the water to run uphill for quite a distance - it just wouldn't happen.  That trough has caused us a few problems when it's leaked in the past.  There was another, but waking up in the morning to find we had no water because the pigs had ripped another ball cock arm off in their trough put an end to that one.

So we had to look at other solutions.  We have a big tank that we fill with rain water.  It's been there just over a year. We've argued and discussed what we're going to do with that rain water but rarely come to any kind of agreement.  It's just been there as a kind of back up.

With no water available to the troughs, I was worrying about our animals.  The cows in the front paddock were doing okay as I can fill their trough with the garden hose over the fence.  The cows in the gully would run out after a while, but they were doing okay for now with two large troughs at different ends of where they were currently running.

The sheep however were a different matter. 

Dry water trough for the sheep.

I carried several buckets of water to them.  I topped up their troughs from others in nearby paddocks since it was starting to evaporate anyway. This wasn't going to work for long.  The sheep are split into two flocks because Ramington is dead keen to fight with Ramuel and would probably kill him. Each trough takes six to eight buckets of water to fill and they will empty that in a day.  Carrying up to 20 kg at a time, walking approximately one kilometre each round trip was leaving me with no time to do anything in the evenings.  This was coming after a day of a physically active and demanding job and I was already rather shattered.

For a temporary measure, we moved an empty plastic water trough to about the halfway point.  It was in the run for the cows in the gully so also served as their water supply.  We managed to run a water line to the trough from the rain water tank and could fill our buckets from there, making it a much quicker and simpler task.

The line from the tank to the trough was cobbled together using every last little piece of irrigation hose we could find.  Plugs went into the holes where jets, risers and drippers had previously been.  Every joiner we could lay our hands on was pressed into service, when we ran out of straight inline joiners, we were using elbows.  This line kinked and bent and ran its merry way down the hill through the paddock to the trough.

We were still carrying buckets every night to water the sheep.  It was getting old very fast. 

We have several IBCs.  IBC stands for Intermediate Bulk Container.  They're caged 1000 litre tanks on pallets that are useful as movable water supply.  We have made plans to use them on several occasions but fittings from their taps to a hose of any sort have always eluded us.  Hubby has rigged up several things at different times but all have been leaky and somewhat unreliable.

I have a vision of having several of these in series in our shelter belts.  They will be both storage and able to supply our water troughs.  Our two flocks are currently in paddocks that come from the same water supply line, here was our opportunity to test my vision in part.

The first issue was fittings.

There had to be something available.  IBCs have become such a hot commodity lately and you can see them everywhere.  Someone will be making something.  I rang a friend who works in irrigation.  He gave us several options and told us where the best place to get them was.  One option is a fitting that screws onto the tap outlet at the bottom of the tank.  He mentioned that the taps can be notorious for not turning off properly and they are very stiff to work.  I agree, they take a fair bit of brute force to turn on and off.  The other option is a fitting that you poke through a drilled hole at the bottom of the tank.  It's made from rubber and will compress enough to go through the hole, and then open out and seal itself on the inside.  Unless your arms are a metre and a half long, you're not going to be able to reach inside to fit anything else to the bottom of the tank.

We rushed into the recommended store to get some before they closed.  Our rural supply stores still close at lunchtime on Saturdays and are closed on Sundays.  They had the tap fitting and other required bushes and connectors to bring it down to fit a 20mm pipe but had sold out of the others.  We left our name and number for when they have some more of the rubber type in stock because we have several more tanks to do, but took the other type to try for now.

We got the tank to the shelter belt where the water line runs.  Getting it actually into the shelter belt required pulling the staples out of two fence posts and lifting the deer fencing enough to squeeze the tank underneath the netting. 

Our next mission was finding the water line.  I carefully dug a trench across the whole shelter belt.  It had to be there somewhere right? I found an old irrigation line that was in very bad shape, but couldn't find the one we wanted.  Maybe it runs down the fence line on the paddock side? How much digging did we want to do?  We dug along and traced the line from the highest water trough back up towards where we wanted to put the IBC.  It snaked back and forth, it's certainly not a straight line, but I supposed time and earthquakes and all sorts of events could have caused that.  We moved where we'd planned to put the IBC to where we got fed up with digging.

Tracing the water line.

We didn't think we had enough hose to get all the way to the IBC so had placed another one partway as a staging area.  The plan was to fill it there and then use a pump to go from there to the one we were putting in place.  Hubby realised there were several old hoses in the back of the shed that were missed last time and we might be able to get all the way to the IBC.  He was setting that up while I was putting the fittings on the tank. 

There are three different fittings here.

Each time we thought we'd gotten close, the water would stop running.  We found a couple of leaks and places where the hose disconnected itself completely, but as it was getting dark, we had success.  I opened the tap and let it fill the troughs as the IBC was filling.

In place, all hooked up and ready to run.

Success!

We may have to fill the IBC this way once a week or so, but no more buckets!

A Woven Rug

I've been working to catch up on washing all the fleece I've got stashed around.  I keep trying to catch up so that I have none left to wash by the time I get my sheep shorn again.  The only time I have ever achieved that was when I had only two adult sheep.

Part of the hold up was when I was given a fadge filled with coloured fleeces.  It took me a while to get through them, then I was back onto mine and just never quite seemed to get caught up.

One fadge from years ago, went into the garden shed.  The shearer we had then, used a battery handpiece and would shear them wherever we had them penned.  He never used a carpet or even a tarp so the fleece was full of grass, seeds and thistle. He didn't separate the dags or belly wool out either.  It was awful to try and clean up.

I was away when he came that time.  He mucked us around for months, we lost a sheep to flies in that time.  He also did the lambs.

So this fadge has a mix of really long fleece lousy with bits of crap that take a lot of work to remove and short very soft fleece.

I tried spinning some of the lamb's wool a while back. It's a slow and frustrating process resulting in a weak thread that's hardly worth using.

That's why this fadge ended up in the garden shed being mostly ignored while I worked with the better fleece.  I say mostly ignored, because whenever we wanted something from the back of the shed, we'd have to move it or climb over it awkwardly and swear about it a lot.

I decided a few months ago to go hard and get this one done.  Get it sorted and out of the way.  I washed it.  It wasn't nice fleece for the most part.  Some of it is more like hair, some of it is matted to the point where I can't separate, comb or card it.  Some of it is permanently stained with sheep sweat (or to use the proper name, sanit) so it has a orange/tan tint.

I could toss it into compost.  I could ditch the lot.  It's pretty rough.  But I just can't do that.  I hate waste, surely there was still a use I could find for it.

I've been making blankets out of my coarser wool.  Everyone has a blanket, except Dad, he doesn't like the weight, the rest of us love them.  My youngest granddaughter isn't even in a bed yet and I'm already most of the way through her blanket for when she graduates to a big girl bed.

I'm running out of people to make blankets for.  I could make them to sell, but I don't think anyone is really willing to pay enough to make it worth my while and certainly not what they should be worth.

It occurred to me that we could use some rugs.  The rug we have on the tile floor in the entranceway isn't really the right size or shape.  I could make rugs.  I learned how to latch hook a rug years ago, my great-grandmother did a lot of it and while I don't think I learned from her, I picked it up somewhere.  There's also another style that I don't know what to call.  Dad used to do a lot of it, it's a series of loops poked through fabric (he always used hessian sacking).  You can either leave the loop or trim/shave it to the length of pile you want.

I presented this idea to Hubby. He didn't like the thought of any of those rugs and instead suggested a simple woven rug. I can do that.  I have a loom.

I got to thinking and planning.  I could use this awful wool and spin it big, uneven and chunky and that would make it even better for a rug.  It would give it a textural element that seems to currently be the big thing on all the home renovation shows.  Spinning chunky and uneven will also be quite quick to do.  If extremely challenging.

I'm a self-taught spinner.  I've watched a YouTube video here and there and read bits in books, but most of it has come from trial and error over about 8 years of practice.  I've spent that time refining my technique and getting a lovely fine and even thread.  So to deliberately spin 'badly' did my head in for a bit.

I started spinning in preparation for a rug.  I was a few balls ahead of the blanket I'm working on for the youngest granddaughter so I had time to spin.

Hubby was working on the hallway.  I banned any new major renovation projects over these Christmas holidays.  None of the previous projects have been completely finished.  The kitchen needs another coat of paint and some finer detail finishing.  The lounge needs some major decisions made regarding a new fire, walls fixed, skirting boards and the carpet laid properly.  Miss 14's room needs some finishing details.  The hallway had the floor replaced at the same time as Miss 14's, but nothing more had happened there.  I put my foot down and said I wanted to see some stuff finished before anything new was started.

The remaining wall paper was stripped and the walls plastered and pigment sealed.  The cupboard doors have come off, been tickled up where they used to be tight (particularly the high cupboards) and the linen cupboard is finally getting a door.  It's mostly down to painting and finishing now.

I suggested the rug I was going to make as a runner for the hallway.  We've gone for very light colours in the hall because it has no natural light of its own and is often a very dark space.  A creamy coloured rug running along the length on top of the fairly dark carpet will help lighten the space.

So to Hubby, it's a race now.  Whether he finishes the hall ready for the rug before the rug is ready for the hall.

I measured the hall and started to prepare the loom for spinning.

I fell down the rabbit hole of weaving.  Heddles and reed, warp and weft.  The jargon on its own can be pretty daunting.  Never mind the actual process and my own inexperience.

I've learned that there is a lot of warp wastage when using a loom.  Warp is the long threads that run from back to front through the heddles and reed.  The warp is the starting point.  You work out the length you need, add some and work it out on the warping mill.

For a 3 metre length, I wanted to start with about 5 metres just to be safe.  I worked this out on my warping mill and started measuring and threading the warp threads through. Hubby stopped what he was doing to help.  This made it a lot easier as I was having to go back and forth for each thread.

I decided to stop before I got to the full width of the reed.  The threads were looking rather tight on the reed and I thought it would probably relax wider when it was woven.

Threading the warp is the longest part of weaving anything.  It takes hours and days.  Each individual thread needs to be untangled from the rest (because you take 30-50 odd 5.6m lengths of woolen yarn, knot it around the rod on the back drum and it tangles itself in protest), poked through a small hole in the heddles, after making sure you've got the right shaft, threaded through the reed making sure you have the right dent and pulled all the way through.  When you've done each bundle, you slip knot it into a bundle to stop it from tangling up too much.  Rinse and repeat.

Warp threads attached to the rod at the back.

Through the heddles

Through the reed and slip knotted

Once that's all done, you undo the slip knots, lay out the long warp threads and wind the back drum up to pull the threads most of the way through.  This was a long and painful process.  The yarn didn't slide through easily like it has previously.  It became uneven and bunched on the drum.  Hubby helped me fix this, one thread at a time.  You also have to keep untangling the threads as they pull through the reed, because as we found earlier, they tangle themselves up constantly.

When you have it mostly onto the drum, you can then tie the ends around the rod on the front drum.  As I learned when I first set the loom up and played with it, you need to leave it until last, as it doesn't matter how well you think you've measured it, it ends up at uneven lengths.

So we did this and tried to start weaving.  The reed didn't want to move.  The entire loom was lifting as I tried to move it forwards and backwards.  The reed was too fine for my wool. 

Luckily I got three more reeds with my loom.  All of which had wider dents (slots) than the one I'd been using.  With Hubby's help, I untied all my threads from the front drum and pulled them through the reed.  I removed the reed and tried another.  I threaded approx 75 threads through and measured the width.  This was too wide, so we tried the one sized in between the two.  We had to remove about 40 threads but at least it worked.  I was finally able to start weaving.

Fortunately, the actual weaving is quite quick.  In only a few hours I've woven 2 metres of rug.

I love how it's working up and can't wait to see it finished.  I will give it a hot wash to hopefully shrink and felt it a little.

Weaving in progress

A close up of the weave

Merino sheep

A while back, I answered an ad on social media offering some coloured ewe lambs.  They were Romney Merino cross with Merino fleece.  Then her husband changed his mind and wanted to keep them.

Recently, she got in touch with me again, to see if I was still keen for two now hogget ewes.  The brown one, she said, had Merino fleece but she thought the motley one had Romney fleece.

I went and had a look at them.  The brown one is only brown on the outside.  Once you got past the tips, her fleece was black.  Right down to the skin.  It was glorious.  Then I looked at the other ewe.  She's kind of off-white with brown legs.  She also has Merino fleece.  I took them both.

Then she contacted me last week.  Did I want her ram? He's the father of the two I've got, but since I have another ram, that's manageable.  They are having to move unexpectedly and rather quickly.  The price was extremely reasonable, so I said yes.

Then a few days later, she contacted me again.  Did I want a ewe with her two lambs for free?

We were planning to reduce our numbers after having so many feed issues last year. Well, there are a few more that we could probably cull out and if it means improving the wool I'm getting, then it's worth it.

They were going to be shorn and drenched over the weekend, ready for me to pick them up the following weekend.  Did I also want the fleece?

We've not long had our sheep shorn, I've got three full fadges of fleece waiting for me to wash, spin and process. How much more could I deal with? Hubby was rolling his eyes at me and pointing out how much space I've gained recently by having a clean out and how much I would be losing by taking this.

I asked how many sheep we were talking about.  Eight.  Eight I can do.  Eight is easy.  If we're being totally honest, I was given some Merino to spin recently and immediately fell in love with it.  It's been hard going back to my Texel fleece, it feels so coarse.  I was dying to get some more.  Yes please I'll take it.

After the weekend, I got another message.  The ram broke out of the enclosure before the shearer got to him and they couldn't get him back in.  The shearer is coming back to get him shorn before we pick him up.  Oh and by the way, there are ten ewes, not eight, don't ask how they got miscounted, did I want another two for free?

So, for about what you'd pay for a lamb, I'm getting 3 ewes, 2 lambs, a ram and a heap of good fleeces.

Sheep and stupidity

Many times, people have said to me that sheep are stupid. Many times, I've disagreed.

I have watched sheep solve problems and get what they want. I've seen them learn. They observe other sheep and follow what works.

A neighbour told me a story about sheep and a cattle stop that I won't forget.

A lot of people use cattle stops where a gate is inconvenient or impractical. Further down our road, there is a road that runs through a paddock often with sheep grazing in it. You can't put a gate across a public road, so there are cattle stops at each end.

For those who are unfamiliar with cattle stops, they're a patch of road that contains a series of steel rails set parallel to each other with a gap between them. Animals can't see exactly where they are placing their hind feet and don't like the way it feels to step on a narrow rail.

This neighbours children didn't like walking over the cattle stop either, so he placed a narrow board over it at one side so the kids could get across.

After about a week, he looked out to find the sheep in his garden. They had watched the kids and were going carefully across the board in single file.

So with the exception of the sheep who can't find the open gate because they are trying to follow their friends down the other side of a fence, I've usually said sheep are smarter than you'd think.

Not anymore. I have one hogget ewe who carries wool that is probably smarter than she is.

Today I untangled her from blackberry for the fifth time in about a month.

Because of feed and parasite issues, I've let them loose in the gully. We don't normally graze the gully as it's a mess of gorse, blackberry and honeysuckle. It's on the list to tidy up, and it gets a bit of work now and then, but it's not a priority until the grazing areas are sorted completely. When we do graze it, it's usually cattle because they do a lot of the work for us.

So this daft ewe has tangled herself up a few times. The first two times weren't too bad. Getting fairly close to her was enough to make her panic and free herself. The next two times were kind of one time twice. I cut the blackberry that was wrapped all around her, pulled the majority of it out of her fleece and she ran headfirst into another big tangle, twisted herself around and I had to do it all over again.

On Monday, I went for a walk to check on my sheep. A combination of lousy weather and a visit from my granddaughter had meant I didn't get a chance over the weekend.

I was one short. I was missing the daft brown hogget ewe. I checked all her usual spots to tangle herself up in and couldn't see any sign of her. I chose not to worry too much, she might come out of the gully when I'm not looking.

Yesterday I put Coco the lamb out with the other sheep during the day. I also put out a feed of sheep nuts which usually brings them running.  Still no sign of her.

Today I went for a walk again, and I found her. At first glance, I thought she had finally managed to kill herself, but a closer look showed she was still breathing.

I spent probably half an hour cutting her out of this lot before she wobbled off unsteadily.

I'm putting the pictures out of order because the one that would come up as a thumbnail would probably upset folks who hadn't read it.

Here is the epitome of a stupid sheep.

After untangling 

This is her as I found her 

Another Mild Winter So Far, Sheep and Parasites

Here we are, approaching the middle of Winter and it's lovely out.  We've had maybe a handful of frosts so far, instead of the usual two months of nearly every day.  The grass almost seems to be starting it's Spring Flush.

As a Summer lover, I should be happy about this.  I much prefer the heat to the cold.  But I'm not happy.  This has caused me issues and worries me about the next month or so.

Many plants that I like to grow need a good freeze every year. 

The volumes of parasites and vermin are usually lowered when we've had a proper cold Winter.

Last week, half my sheep went down scouring.  I had to physically pick them up off the ground where they'd become cast, my old ram took four or five attempts before he could take more than one step and collapse again.  Several had become quite skinny, with spines and hips showing through their thick Winter fleece.

My Wonderful Neighbour recommended opening up the gully for them, as there was plenty of good grass in there and if they've got good grass in the open, they should be less likely to get stuck in the blackberry.  Give them some hay right now, it will bind them up a bit.  He also recommended drenching with a double dose for the scouring ones.

I went out with a bale of hay and split it between my two flocks.  That's when I found Lenny.  I thought he was dead.  He was down, scouring and the magpies had been pecking at his eye.  I got him at least on his belly, instead of his side and surrounded him with hay.

I went to our farm supplies store and had a lovely long chat with the lady there.  She recommended pouring pineapple juice into Lenny.  They love the taste and it's filled with sugar.  That should give him some energy to be getting up and about.  Give them sheep nuts too.  And this drench is good, it also contains a dose of minerals, don't double dose any of them.  Leave Lenny until tomorrow.

The general consensus is parasite numbers have gotten very bad as a result of our third mild Winter in a row.  Usually a few decent frosts will kill off 95% of the worm eggs and larvae in the grass.  The lady at the farm supplies store also said there seems to be a new worm around.  Bigger farms than mine with far more experienced farmers have been having issues with their sheep suddenly going down.  Enough for them to call vets in.

I also got Cider Vinegar to go in their water troughs.  I have used it for years without any problems, mostly because until a year ago, I didn't have yards to contain and drench my animals.  The vinegar kills most parasites and the parasites don't become resistant to it.  I hadn't dosed the water troughs in months though, partly because I'd run out and forgotten that I'd run out and partly because I'd just spent six weeks not allowed to lift a finger for myself (recovering from surgery) and so most of the little things I would normally see and do had started to slip.  Hubby did a wonderful job milking the cow and feeding the chickens, but he doesn't have the habit of looking out into the paddocks as he's doing the chores and he doesn't stop and do a head count of the sheep when he can see them.

I poured pineapple juice down Lenny, I gave him sheep nuts.  I went back to check on him frequently and eventually got him up and moving.  It was slow and painful, but I was able to get him under cover on a bed of hay and with a handful of sheep nuts to munch on.

The next day I went out to drench them.  I found one of my wethers down and scouring. I drenched him while I was picking him up.  He bounced back rather quickly. I worked my way through the rest of my animals, although I couldn't get one of my ewes into the yards.  She wouldn't follow the rest of her flock, she ran into the old turkey shed in the next paddock (we were running them through this one to get to the yards) instead.  Since the shed has a narrow doorway, Hubby went into the shed to try to catch her and I blocked the doorway.  She ran full force, grumpy, stroppy force, into my kneecap.  I still have a nasty bruise.  I managed to pin her against the side and drench her there though.  I had to pick a couple of the hoggets up, but they kept going once they were up.

Lenny was up and about.  He seemed to spend the day going from the water trough to the bin of sheep nuts and back again.

I spent a couple of hours reading up on parasites and learning about their life cycles, which animals are more prone to them and under what conditions.  There's a wonderful resource available as a pdf that you can find here. It gives you more information than you probably ever wanted to know, but much of it is very useful to someone like me.

The next morning, Lenny was down again and not able to get up.  I tried picking him up, but he couldn't quite get his feet under him.  The wounded eye was weeping.  He'd stopped scouring and seemed a little bloated.  I poured more pineapple juice down him.  He seemed quite keen for it, although his tummy was making some alarming noises after he'd finished.

After I'd finished the pineapple juice, I went back every few hours to give him some electrolytes.  I thought they'd give him the nutrition he needed while allowing whatever was bothering his stomachs to pass. The last time I went out, late in the day, he'd gone.

I've become pretty good at not taking livestock deaths personally, but I cried.  I'd just fought for three days to keep him alive and I failed.  I'd only had Lenny for a few months, he came to us as a fat pet hogget and we lost him.

I've had a few conversations with people who know more about sheep than I do (nearly everyone who has sheep) and there have been a few suggestions floated.  One is that my sheep are mostly immune to whatever bugs we have here and he wasn't.  It affected him the most because he'd come in from elsewhere.  Another is that he brought the new bug with him.  Another is shit happens, if you have live stock, you have dead stock and you can't win them all.

Sigh.  I just hope that we have his offspring brewing in the girls he'd been running with.

Now.  I'm going to take you back in time by a week.  Yes, I know this is out of order, but bear with me.

The week before, I was out trying my hand at doing my animal chores with help and supervision (mostly in the form of "don't lift that") from Hubby.  I glanced out over our paddocks as is my habit and asked, "Is that a dead sheep?"

We went for a walk and found Molly, one of my older ewes.  She was alive, but on her side and the hawks had been attacking her face.  She showed no signs of scouring.  I tried to get her on her feet.  I failed.  I turned her around at least so her head was uphill.  Her gums were white which isn't a good sign.  She was skinny but not scouring.  I tried to tempt her with handfuls of fresh grass and electrolytes, but we lost her.  It's been suggested that she might have had a heart condition or something - the lack of scouring removes many diseases from the probable cause of death list. 

I moved the other sheep from her paddock, and in doing so found an abandoned lamb.  Two of my ewes showed signs of having lambed, Nibbles had a healthy fat white lamb running around her and Peg had blood down her back legs and tail. Nibbles' lamb looked to be a couple of days old and this one was brand new, bright fresh navel string and all.  I picked it up and took it over to the sheep, it bounced around crying and tried to feed off most of them.  They all either ran away or beat him up.

I took him up to the house and made up a bottle.  I thought maybe give him a good feed and then take him back and see if Mum will take him then.  I was fairly sure he was Peg's, but she had hardly any udder and was looking a little rough too.  Each time I took him near the sheep, they'd run away or knock him over.  And then he'd follow me around head-butting my legs and tripping me up.  I gained a pet lamb.

My darling granddaughter Miss Two named him Coco and he's still doing fine.  He outgrew the box in the lounge rather quickly and had to move out to the pen in the milking shed - hastily cleaned up to remove the last of the pig poo and a bed of hay laid down.  So to cheer up a hard post to make, here are some pictures of Coco. This is why he came at the end.

Two days old, exploring the lawn and garden.

At about a week old, in the shed.