Welcome to the world, part II or: Life and Death

Only five days after Schnucki had her first lamb, Wilma had hers. It really surprised us as there were signs only briefly before Wilma went into labor around 1:30pm. Although we considered ourselves kind of experienced now after being there for Schnucki five days ago, things were a lot more difficult and scary this time. Wilma had a very hard time during labor, although her lamb was much smaller than Schnucki's. In fact, it was so small and fragile that we were very afraid of how things would turn out. It didn't get up nearly as quickly as Schucki's lamb and it took almost two hours before the first sucking attempts were made - which didn't work. We were very concerned as the first five to six hours are very important. After those hours, the milk doesn't provide the necessary "ingredients" for the newborn anymore. It was also a very cold day and the little one was shivering a lot despite the two heat lamps. The vet came over and was optimistic though. We took his advice and kept trying to get the lamb to drink. Wyman even had to milk Wilma and fed her lamb with one of Glenny's former bottles. By the end of the day, the first successful yet Brief sucking attempts were made. We were still very concerned the next few days until the Little girl seemed to have been out of the weather. We are also collecting name suggestions for her.

​All of our animals can be sponsored. Our sheep can each be sponsored for 3€/3.50USD per month. Here is the PayPal link. Sponsors are listed on our website next to a photo of the sponsored animal - unless this is not wanted. 

February 6th, 2018 was also a very sad day. One life began, another one ended. When we wanted to close in the chickens for the night, we noticed that two chickens were missing: Bertha and Henrietta. We finally found Bertha who was walking around our property, kind of being lost. But we couldn't find Henrietta. Wyman joked that it was hard to find a white chicken in the snow. Andrea then looked at Henrietta's favorite spot, the manure pile. And there she was, dead with bleeding wounds. It must have been the fox. We later heard that foxes are now also hunting much earlier during the day as they are hungry during these cold days. We felt so guilty that we didn't keep Henrietta safe and decided that from now on the chickens' freedom had to be limited. We moved them to a provisional home inside the barn with a very small enclosure attached until the new big one is finished. Today we wanted to introduce all our chickens to Johnny, their first rooster. We had to postpone this. May Henrietta rest in peace. Just a day before we had also lost our dwarf hamster Pino. Both Henrietta and Pino were buried a few days later.