What better thing to do on a sunday morning than go and collect some sheep? In true finca-style chaos due to our broken van we had to convert the \”good clean car\” into a animal transport vehicle for the day. Would you believe none of them peed inside the car until we opened the door to lift them out and then covered the boot of the car in sheep pee. We nearly made it back clean.
It is always interesting \”rescuing\” animals from nice places. Its somehow harder to take someones pet than it is to take a full blown rescue. There is always the added pressure when they come to visit.
The reasons for rescuing pets can be varied. Sometimes this can be a case of people moving away. Family circumstances. Changes in lifestyles. Many genuine reasons. They can come from places where they are well looked after or they can come from places where people love them but are ignorant to their needs. Everything is possible and we have seen it all.
This time was a family circumstance. Things have changed. They had a well loved group of sheep. However many were very old. Unfortunately in this situation the old sheep accidentally got pregnant when she was to old/ unwell to care for the baby. This is why we stepped in and have taken mummy and baby. Baby Freddie is almost 1 month old as lovely helpers did a great job of adding to the milk from the mum along with bottles of formula to allow him to have enough. Anyone who has bottle fed a baby animal knows how time consuming it is and difficult to get the balance right. With all the knowledge in the world it is still impossible to recreate nature. Sadly sometimes we have to intervene.
Poor Mumma
She Is in a difficult condition. We do not know yet if it is old age, parasites or complicated due to having a baby. We are starting with them in a private enclosure so they can eat and regain strength without having to fight the heard for food. Lets hope this is all she needs. She is eating very well, has a great appetite and acts stronger than she looks. If a particular annoying little dog ( smeagol ) comes to close to the gate she defends her little baby very well. We are monitoring her food and water intake and her toilet habits too. All of which is currently very good. There doesn\’t seem to be any indications of parasites yet but when she is stronger we will treat for this anyway.
Freddie
He is looking fairly good. He has nice regrowth of hair which the girls said he struggled with at the beginning due to being malnourished. However we need to monitor his diarrhea. At the moment it is mild. His appetite is great and he loves to take the bottle. We have started to introduce some vitamins especially for baby goats and sheep into his bottle to help. However the next days are the difficult ones where we have to monitor everything closely as things can decline very quickly with babies.
Early morning call
Across the quiet finca and sunrise all you can hear normally is cockerels ( lots of them ) but this morning we woke to the cute call of a hungry little baby wanting his bottle. I must say i enjoying strolling down with a bottle in my pajamas. It is a nice way to start the morning. Even if there was 250+ pairs of hungry eyes staring at me hungrily. Why is the newbie first for breakfast they are all thinking!
Would you like to sponsor Freddie and his Mumma?
We will have to continue to bottle feed Freddie for some time, add vitamins and treatment that will be required. When the time comes we will also have to castrate Freddie so he doesn\’t get his poor old mummy pregnant again. All of this adds up so they would love a sponsor to these causes.
You can do this via many options on the how to help page or via Patreon where you can become and insider and keep up to date with behind the scenes, vlogs, videos and pictures about all of the animals on our sanctuary.
