Orphan HST ewes, oh my.

We helped Kim and Bob at Kimberwood with their shearing all day today. We workers were looking forward to hot baths, had changed out of filthy barn clothes, and then I checked the phone messages. Our neighbors, the ones who are new at raising Shetlands, had left a distress message on our answering machine telling us a ewe had died after lambing, as well as one lamb, and the caller feared for the second.

To make a long story short, guess who's living in our laundry room?

It was true, the ewe did die, a sad shame. Probably a retained placenta. But both lambs were alive and lively, and apparently a few days old. I guess one lamb was sleeping when they gave it up as dead. The other wasn't drinking, but soon came around to the bottle. Spotted moorit and musket ewe lambs. We offered to care for the lambs as our neighbors didn't think they could do it, so they told us they'd be ours if we would.
We fed them little bottles of milk replacer, gave them CDT shots and settled them into our laundry area for the night. I hope they make it, and that we don't go crazy taking care of them.

Tomorrow's Easter! We'll bring lambs to my folks for the afternoon in the city!