We get lambs! Arnold left this morning to collect them, I am waiting excited at home for his return. Two pure East Friesians with a pedigree from Slovakia’s best breeder mr&mrs Kovac! One of their ewes has rejected her two female lambs and they have offered them to us. We very happy since it is extremely difficult to get lambs from East Friesians in Slovakia. It is the most productive dairy sheep breed you can get.
However now we have to artificially rear them and in our area you can't get special lamb milk. Sheep milk is not for sale yet since it is the beginning of the lambing season and here it is normal not to separate lambs from their mothers during the first two months. At two months or 12 kg the lambs are weaned and sold to Italy and the ewes are milked for a few more months. The milk is use to make delicious sheep cheeses.
It is not recommended to feed cow milk to orphaned lambs since sheep milk is much richer. But if you have nothing else you can try to make your own lamb milk from it by enriching it. We keep our fingers crossed that they wont get stomach problems since natural sheep milk is of course much better for them.
Luckily we have the bottles needed for artificially rearing these lambs. We got them as presents when our daughter Katinka was born. Like we got several dummies. Apparently with human beings it is normal to rear your child artificial. Although the official WHO recommendation is to breastfeed for two years in the western world it is considered abnormal and almost obscene. Katinka still gets mum’s milk if she wants, because it is natural and normal! It is the healthiest drink she can get, it comforts her when she is upset and she loves it.
So now we have found a use for the bottles, any suggestions on what we should do with the dummies?
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