Meet Burr-nie !



This is Burrnie.

 

Little Burrnie is a rescue.  We are not in the habit of acquiring sheep in any fashion other than as necessity to further a breeding strategy, and exhaustive health testing is required before anybody sets hoof on the farm.  Burrnie had the misfortune to be brought home by "people" who were.... let's be very generous and say 'clueless'.  The situation was near enough that we observed it on a daily basis for many weeks.  Without going into detail about the people and local humane agencies suffice it to say that we couldn't stand it any longer and offered to trade some hay to feed the surviving cattle in exchange for the lone lamb.

We had him vetted and the blood work has finally come back - negative for all the dire diseases we usually check for.  Yay! I haven't mentioned him to hardly anyone because I didn't want to jinx the blood tests.  Yes, we're very logical and rational here.  After three weeks of quarantine on the livestock trailer he's been moved into a lambing pen in the lower barn.  He's already gained a good bit of weight since the day we got him and almost looks like a normal sheep.

He is an intact ram lamb, probably about six months old and likely some cross with Shetland involved - clearly something very hardy :-/.  His face and legs have pretty cinnamon hair but his fleece seems white.  It's a terrible mess of burdocks and is starting to break due to severe "a-grocery-osis" but will be quite fine and soft next year.  He is very shy but took an instant liking to Nilla Wafers.  Thanks, crazysheeplady!  We'll keep him here for a while while we consider what to do with him.  I think he'd fare poorly in the ram barn.  Our ram lambs are three times his size.

"Well, it's pretty nice here and the food is excellent but I'm still scared.  Everyone is so BIG!"

 

We are fervently hoping he's the only animal we ever need to rescue.  But at least now we can sleep at night.