Em Nau Farm BLOG

Young Animals

Over the past two months or so we have had three lambs born at Em Nau Farm.  The original plan was for each new arrival, once of a decent size, to go in the freezer.  This plan went west when the first one born lost its mother a week after birth.  Shadow, as he is now called, is destined to be a pet and was born in early May 2014.

The other two (and as I write this there is probably another one or two imminent) have been born over the past week or so and the first of these, a ram, has been Shadow’s shadow.  The second one, a ewe, was born yesterday and has been stuck close to her mum since birth.

As I sit feeding Shadow (he is bottle feed and as fat as Pavarotti) I must laugh at the other buck that jumps and flips around as he tests out what his legs can do.  If I sit long enough he, and the other sheep, sometimes forget that I am there and the slowly graze up close to me.  The sudden realization that they were in the presence of a human, incites them to be up in a flash and galloping away so they are out of harm.  The mother ewes grunting at their offspring to get their attention so as to follow.

The lambs, like most children, can be focused and intent as long as there is not something “shiny or sparkly” around.  They are quickly taken to inspecting a piece of scotch thistle or a cow pat with wide eyed wonder, their noses aimed intently at the object of interest, sometimes even having a little taste test (almost like 'looks like sh1t, smells like sh1t, tastes like sh1t - luck I didn't step in it), before getting the call from their mum to rejoin her or running off to find a friend to play with before something else to distract them takes hold.

Late afternoons seem the time that all young animals seem to go a little crazy when running around.  We first noticed this with the goats who would “dawnger” (door-n-ger) around jumping off rocks, their siblings, their mums, the wall or the shed, the hay feeder or they would just jump and twist.  We also noticed that the calves did it by running as fast as they could from the top of the paddock then suddenly stopping only to run back up the paddock and starting all over again. It is like a game of catch me kiss me.  Now we have noticed that the lambs run along the fence line chasing each other, jumping and skipping, “dawngering” with each other, stopping to have a little tussle then off again along the fence.

There is nothing more relaxing than sitting and watching the animals play in the late afternoon, enlisting giggles from those who watch with their attempts to fly and forcing their mothers to 'grunt' as if to say "don't go to far as it is nearly time for a feed".

This is truly living the dash.