Sibling rivalry sucks

In the world of sheep, there are the bullies and the bullied. Right now, all of the babies are the bullied, as Rambo, their father, and their two older step-siblings from last year's crop are intent on getting the damn little things out of their way. You can practically see the cartoon balloons coming from their heads saying "Annoying little bastards! Get the F away from my food!" Nevermind that the little ones are mainly dining on mother's milk and aren't a threat to their food source.

But it always pisses me off when I see Rambo head-butt one of the little ones. His head is REALLY hard. I know of what I speak here. Ow. Asshole! So that's when we bring out the "Rambo Be Good Stick" - otherwise known as an aluminum baseball bat. He respects that at least.

Within the little ones, there is also a pecking order. On the top, there are Chocolate Chip's twins. These two little hellspawn are growing like weeds. I have NO idea how Chip is producing enough milk to maintain their phenomenal growth rate, but she is. These little boys are HUGE for being only three weeks old. Next down the totem pole is Oreo's boy. He's not quite as big as Chip's twins, which is actually kind of odd seeing as how he doesn't have to compete for food at all, being that he's the only one Oreo feeds.

On the bottom are Clarice's triplets. The two black boys first, and then the little grey girl is lowest on the heap. And it's her that I'm a little bit worried about.

At two weeks old, there is already a big difference in size between the triplets. One boy is noticeably bigger than the other, so obviously he's been getting the most food. But the little girl is so tiny and still weak-looking that I'm wondering if she's getting all the nutrition she needs. She looks like she's only a week old, and not twice that age.

I know that there's always a runt of the litter when you have triplets or quadruplets and that usually they do just fine, but with so many sheep in the pen right now, the little girl is in big danger of getting maimed by the rest of the flock if she doesn't start gaining weight and soon.

I'm thinking that it's time to start supplementing her food - which means we're going to start bottlefeeding her at night. If I can get her to double her size in two weeks, and keep her from getting injured, I would consider that a huge success. I don't want to take her away from Clarice completely, but if Clarice ends up rejecting her after we start supplementing, it won't be as awful a thing as if she had been rejected from the begining. Clarice is very mothering towards all three of her babies and her udder is constantly swollen with milk, so the little girl's lack of growth isn't from her not being allowed to nurse or a poor supply problem. It's just that her two brothers are pigs - one more so than the other.

Plus, it's always so nice to bottle-raise a lamb. The girls love being able to lavish attention on the lamb, and it's a bit like having a dog in a lot of ways with them always following you around.

So tonight I'm taking the Coke bottle I salvaged from the recycle bin, and buying some new lamb nipples. The formula's already at home, and we're going to go to town. Gotta catch the little bugger first, though. Time to train the Aussie Shepherd! It's time she started earning her keep around the place.

Wish me luck!