Just yesterday morning I was out in the meadow, sitting on the grass propped up against a mossy granite wall when our sweet, little lamb Belle came up to me and gave me a slobbery kiss on the hand. I took off my tweed flat cap and placed it on her head, of course I had to take a photo and I shared it to my instagram, with a giggle.
I did not think that the very same evening I would have found her tangled up needing critical care and attention. Yesterday we had rather a busy day, my father, Lloyd and I, were creating some wooden gates for a second pasture for the sheep, enabling us to rotate their fields and keep them with plenty of fresh, green grass. It was quite a hot day and digging post holes and wheeling cement back and forth took its toll on us. We finished the gates and had them ready to be hung the next day, and so we took a stroll down to the meadow where the sheep currently are to take them back to their house, ready for bed.
Then we noticed one was lying down by the stream, she seemed helpless, we dropped our things and ran over to her, thinking she had collapsed in the heat. It was our little, sweet Belle, fortunately she was breathing and alert, her eyes wide as could be, yet not bleating in pain. She did not however seem to be in the best way, and since our neighbour had recently lost eight of his sheep to wild dogs we feared the worst.
We quickly saw that her leg had been tangled in the fence and it was not an attack, after some careful evaluation Belle did not seem to have that many wounds, a small cut on her leg where the wire had wrapped around her ankle and a graze on her cheek which she probably acquired trying to break free. I untangled her and gave her some water but she would not get up, she would just lay there, her head resting on my lap. I thought maybe we should give her a day or so of rest so we picked her up and brought her inside, Mariana made a nice little nest of towels for her inside the house and we gave her some fresh grass, some molasses for energy and a bowl of water.
Belle spent the night on the towels, with us by her side, she ate all of her food over a few hours and was her usual, dear self. I had initially thought she may have broken her leg and that we would have to call the agricultural vet in the morning, but miraculously little Belle stumbled to her feet and stood for a few moments, she wobbled around and gently sat herself down on the towels.
We awoke in the morning with little Belle sitting wide eyed chewing the cud on her towel-nest. She is still frail and wobbly but hopefully under nurse Marianas care we will have nursed our little Belle back to health and fingers crossed our wide eyed, resident lawnmower will return back outside with her friends in the next day or so! Never a dull day when you have livestock...