Exactly one year after the birth of Dylan, Lavender finally gave birth to Molly on July 7th.
It turned out to be a stressful 24 hours for us as Molly, at first, couldn’t get it together to feed, and then when she finally did start to try, Lavender would push her away – not in a rejecting sort of way, but in a ‘my teats are uncomfortable’ sort of way.
We encouraged as much as we could, and I milked Lavender to try to get the milk flowing and to collect some of the precious colostrum. Caerthan went off to the vet and got a supply of lamb colostrum as a second best, and it was all a bit touch and go really. We kept mother and baby in the barn that night – first time we’ve had to do that.
The next day things did improve, and Molly started to make it to the milk bar. Lavender was still a bit reluctant, but finally we saw Molly getting a bit of life in her, which indicated that she was getting her nourishment, and sure enough, the usually bombing about the field wasn’t long after that.
She is an absolute delight – very small compared to Heulwen, but charming. Even Tyler is captivated.