The Shepherd's Daughter: Two Special Girls

    Dorothy and Rainbow are twin sisters that were born on a very cold, snowy day in March. Their story is pretty special. Dorothy and Rainbow came from one of our first time momma's Sally. At the time these first momma's weren't put in the lambing barn due to the fact they were bred later than our older momma's, so we weren't expecting them to be laboring any time soon.

    Chores were done for the morning, all the animals were fed and checked on, everyone was okay, at least for the moment. When the time came for evening chores, I decided to go out ahead of everyone else so I could put out hay for our first time momma's before we all headed up to the lambing barn to keep a check on our older moms.

    I pull up to the fence and as always Marley was there to greet me, I grabbed from the bail of hay laying there to the side and just as I was about to throw it in, there laid a precious little lamb, right where the pile of hay was put earlier that morning. Adrenaline kicked in. No sheep was around it just Marley. I jumped over the fence, grabbed it's frozen body up in my arms. I just knew it was dead but I couldn't take a chance. I swung it back and forth against my hand as I had seen mom and dad do several times after lambs were born, I heard a few noises come from it's mouth. That was my glimmer of hope. She was a beauty, markings like we've never had on a lamb before. I held her close hoping to give her some warmth. I climbed back over the fence, got on the Kubota holding this poor little lamb, I called mom to let her know what was going on, that I'd meet them at the barn. I was sobbing. I felt completely helpless, I wanted to save her! I made it to the barn before mom and dad could. I took her in and held her close still trying to warm her up, praying that God would take care of her. I struggled to get my finger in her mouth to check her temperature, her little mouth was stiff and the inside was ice cold.

    Mom and dad arrived and so did my husband Daniel. I held her as dad put a feeding tube in her to try and get her warm on the inside, Daniel held the heat lamp over us to help warm her on the outside. Mom went back to the pasture to make sure that was all the lambs. Sure enough in the same spot I found her, mom found another one, only covered in mud. Sally their mother had abandoned her lambs at first, like most first time sheep momma's do, so Marley stepped in, determined to help, dragged the second one to the top of the pasture where I recently found the first one. Now that's a good dog!! Mom brought the second little lamb up to the barn and we worked on her as well. After they each were fed a bit and warmed up for a while they were good as new. Dad and mom went back out to retrieve their mother Sally, and fixed them up a pin in the lambing barn. They were all reunited!

    These two girls are a blessing and have completely stolen our hearts and have even gave us some really good laughs. By the way, Sally turned out to be an excellent momma!!

Sally cleaning her baby and getting her to nurse.

Daniel helped me come up with the names. He knows I'm a big Wizard of Oz fan so he suggested the name Dorothy and mom came up with the name Rainbow for her sister. They didn't have to pull my leg on those names!!! :)

Rainbow was worn out from all the excitement.

These two sure had been through a lot.

Nothing like having a sibling to help you through the tough times.

You can't tell it in the picture but Sally has the same markings as Dorothy but the coloring of her wool is more faint like a tan color rather than the brown on Dorothy's. Dorothy gets her looks from her grandma Dottie. Rainbow didn't the markings her sister, mom, and grandma have. She's snow white like her daddy Esau.

A few days older and these girls are really enjoying the bottle that Daniel's feeding them.

These next three pictures were taken by Sara Dunham. She did a wonderful job capturing their personalities. http://myfavoritesheep.blogspot.com/

Rainbow's curiosity got the best of her one night and managed her way out of her pin, causing a few injuries. She was to be kept away from Momma a few days. Mom and everyone else of course babied her. We kept her in the bath tub at the house and she got plenty of attention. Even Eoghan babysat some.