A Lamb Called Lucky by Helen Peters

Author:Helen Peters [Helen Peters]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788000253
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Published: 2018-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

“That’s right, Lucky,” said Tom, as he bounced the lamb’s back legs gently up and down. “You’re definitely getting stronger.”

It was Sunday afternoon, and Tom was doing Lucky’s exercises in the kitchen while Jasmine prepared his first bottle of formula milk. Mum had given him all his colostrum from the tube, and now Dad had asked Jasmine to give him a bottle.

“He needs to know how to suck before we put him on a foster mother,” Dad had said. “But we don’t want to get him used to the bottle, or it might be harder to foster him.”

Jasmine hoped it would be impossible to foster Lucky, and not only for her own sake. The most successful fostering usually happened when a lamb was matched with a ewe whose lamb had just died, and Jasmine certainly didn’t want that to happen.

However, another method that sometimes worked was to trick the mother of a single lamb into thinking she had had twins. Sheep use their sense of smell to identify their own lambs, so you could rub the birth fluids on an orphan lamb and hope the ewe would think it was hers. Sometimes this worked and sometimes it didn’t. If the ewe discovered the lamb wasn’t hers, she might reject it violently. Jasmine dreaded this happening to Lucky, who was so small and defenceless. What if his back legs got even more damaged?

“I think that’s enough exercise for now,” said Tom. “I don’t want to tire him out. Shall we try him with the bottle?”

Jasmine settled Lucky on her lap, tucking his long skinny legs underneath his tiny body. She stroked his soft ears. They had fluffy edges, as though they were trimmed with fur.

Tom handed her the bottle. She prised Lucky’s mouth open and slipped the teat in. Lucky jerked his head away and the teat slipped out.

“Come on, Lucky,” said Jasmine. “You need to learn to suck.”

She pulled his jaws apart and positioned the teat in his mouth. Lucky jerked his head away again.

“How about if I hold his head?” said Tom. So this time, when Jasmine slipped the teat into Lucky’s mouth, Tom gently held his head in place. But Lucky still didn’t suck.

“Try moving his jaw up and down,” said Jasmine, “to teach him what to do.”

Tom did so. After a few seconds, Lucky wiggled his tail.

“He must be tasting the milk,” said Jasmine. “He likes it.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.