There is a Lamb Stuck in My Bathroom!

This is Timber. He is stuck in my bathroom. Not stuck as in: we can't open the door - nope we just can't get him up to the barn. It's a long story...

Timber was born the first week of May and his shepherdess was not sure he was getting enough milk from his mom. The shepherdess was leaving town and so little Timber became a "bottle baby" and the shepherd took over the feedings. That's where I came in. The shepherdess let me know that she had a Shetland/Rambouillet cross bottle baby for me if I wanted to take him. Uh, do I want a baby lamb...let me see now... cute , soft cuddly bottle baby tap, tap, tapping around my bathroom and kitchen in tiny diapers....what do you think I said?

So, you know. He was in the bathroom being bottle fed, and cuddled a lot. He was doing great. Then summer hit and we ( ok, not me but he) decided that we could weather the heat with no AC. We think little Tim couldn't handle the sudden change because he became ill. Very ill. Scary ill. Time to call the vet in a blind panic. We did antibiotics, probiotics and vitamin shots. I can't even remember what all we did. It took weeks to get little Tim back on track and we still don't know exactly what happened.

But Timber got better, started growing and spending time outside. He was eating all of the blossoms off of the plants in the vegetable garden, so we were anxious to get him out of the back yard and up to the barn.

We were starting the transition up to the barn, being VERY CAREFUL to not have him up there in the heat of the day. We made a little pen for him so the other sheep and goats couldn't beat him up. We made arrangements to get two little 16 week old black shetland wethers so Timber would have babies his size making the transition at the same time.

Then he came up lame, and sick, with a fever... back to the vet. (Now this shepherdess is totally freaking out and wondering what the heck I was doing wrong!) Turns out that with anitbiotics the fever went away but the limp got worse. Back to the vet and insist on xrays. Timber had a broken toe on his left front leg. Yep, Lambs have toes! Who knew?

I am going to skip the scary part where the vet talked about sending Timber to the University for surgery to the tune of THOUSANDS of dollars, and maybe not being able to do anything at all for him. I am also going to skip the part about how we ( the vet, me, a bunch of vet techs) spent a whole afternoon trying to glue a "block" to his foot so he could walk without putting pressure on his toe. Nothing worked and I took my limping lambie pie home.

The next day my absolutely brilliant friend, Lisa, got in touch with her farrier and together they hatched a plan to glue the "block" to Timber's foot. The next Saturday I met Lisa and her farrier at the barn and presto whammo - the block was glued with some magic brown stuff and it is stuck tight! After a few days of practice little Tim is tap, tap, tapping around my house again in a "belly band" because believe me, you might be able to get lipstick on a pig, but you sure can't get diapers on a lamb his size!

So that is why there is a Lamb stuck in my bathroom until: the toe heals, the vet can splint the opposite leg,* and the weather is a little less brutal so he can move to the barn. Where the two adorable black and silver shetland cutie pie sheepie boys are settling in nicely.

Whew! See? It was a long story.

I have LOTS more to tell you, but it can wait till tomorrow.

*Timber's opposite leg is growing crooked because of all of the pressure on it so he has Angular Limb Disorder in that leg now.