A Few Pickles in the Pet Pen

We've actually got two different sorts of pickles in the pet lamb "Pet Pen" here at Struan Farm right now.

This week our newbie pet lamb was christened "Pickle." Mostly because she's behaving like someone who is going to get herself into a pickle of trouble regularly, trying to grab the other lambs' bottles. It's taken me awhile to come up with the right name for her, something out of character for me. Normally I can look at a lamb, size it up, and decide on a name right away. Perhaps this year after losing Mamie my naming super power needed some recovery time. But "Pickle" it is. "Cheeky" was the other contender.

The other pickle I've got right now is that Chalk isn't drinking her bottles. She starts to drink, then gets spooked off by Pickle and Cheese bunting her. She's walking away rather than coming back to finish, even with me running interference for her. This is definitely not normal lamb behaviour. I've had this happen once before, with Trixie, who was a very gentle and hyper-sensitive lamb. I ended up having to put Trixie with younger, gentler lambs so she calmed down and didn't starve herself. In this instance I'm hopping into the pen and sitting Chalk on my lap to get her to drink as much of her bottle as she will (I won't call this force feeding, but sitting on my lap would not be her choice). After that she stands and quivers a bit, the poor anxious little thing. It may be that we put Cheese and Pickle out in the paddock with Peaches and Fig, leaving Chalk to feed up by herself in the Pet Pen. But then that risks isolating her even more from the other rambunctious lambs.

Aside from the possibility of having a neurotic lamb on my hands, this could mean Chalk isn't well. She might have an infection or some other type of health problem or congenital defect. I put out an SOS to Farmer John, who came over to give her an injection of antibiotics. I suspect he sometimes rolls his eyes when I fret too much about the pet lambs, but over the years I think I've shown him that I pay attention to little things that sometimes signal a major problem, like contagious pink eye for one. And lambs not drinking their bottles is usually a sign something or other is wrong.