Animal Rescue - got nothing on me.

Lilly and I were riding around the edge of one of the dams looking for cast ewes or ones hiding in the grass. A movement in the water made me look over and I just assumed it was a fish flicking up. Another small movement at the bank made me stop the bike and look harder. This dam is one that is used for pumping – so has very steep banks and is not graduated – it goes to 20 feet deep very suddenly. The water had dropped a lot in the last month or so – so the waters edge lapped up against mini cliff faces – all of about 3 or 4 feet high. There huddled on a ledge no wider than a few inches wide was a tiny day old lamb. It must have been walking with its mother on the top of the bank and slipped. I can’t imagine how lucky it must have been to have landed on the ledge and not into the water and drowned.

The challenge in front of me was that this skittish lamb was sure to leap into the water and drown if it saw me approach. So commando style, I crawled up the bank and through the grass over the top above the lamb. I had to lay flat and reach down across the incline to a full stretch to be able to get close to the lamb. At the nano second I launched myself further to reach it, I hoped feverently that I would not lose grip on the ground and slide down into the freezing green depths of the dam – lamb in hand. Thankfully this didn’t happen, but I did end up with a struggling, mucus encased lamb in one hand and facing a precarious unbalanced position far too close to the dam waters than I had ever intended to be. A bit of belly crawling backwards saw me sitting on the dam bank covered in mud, gras stains and new lamb poo – but triumphantly with the lamb in arms. The poor little thing was wet and exhausted and I knew that its mother will have given up on it – so took it back to the orphanage – a special set of small pens in the shearing shed where all the orphaned and mis mothered lambs are taken. They are fed and within a few days hopefully matched up with a mother who has lost a lamb or one who can support another.

A special experience for me was to introduce birth to the kids. Mum brought one of the ewes into the hospital paddock – close to the orphanage. She had been cast for hours and had lost strength in trying to lamb. It was getting very dark when we checked on her again – hoping that in a safer spot she’d be able to finish herself. She wasn’t dilated enough and the lambs head was very big. The kids all looked as the legs and tiny nose showed. It took both mum and I to pull – and mum had to assist with the head to come out. The lamb slithered out and covered us in afterbirth. The kids eyes were as large as dinner plates as they watched – and to their credit none of them said yuck or gross.

We all rolled home dirty and smelly – another day on the farm – but a valuable lesson for the kids.

Pici of Jodi and Lilly on one of the bikes.