The Bum Lamb

"The lambing season" of sheep refers to the time of the year when new baby lambs are born. Sometime prior to the lambing season a group of male sheep (Bucks) were turned into a herd of Ewes (female sheep) to do their thing.  This resulted in a new lamb crop occurring during a short period of time later in the Spring.

During this season there were always several lambs that were rejected by the mother or the mother died during birth.  Dad would try to get another mother sheep to adopt the orphan lamb, but was seldom successful.  A mother sheep would not allow a strange lamb to nurse.  Consequently, dad and other sheep owners would gather up the orphaned lambs and give them to family members to raise. The lamb was fed with a bottle and nipple using cows milk.  These lambs were identified as "bum Lambs".

One year when I was about ten years old, my dad brought home a bum lamb.  It was my assignment to feed this lamb every night and morning.  The lamb thought I was its mother. This continued until the lamb eventually learned to drink from a pail.  When it learned that I wasn't its mother, the lamb still thought I was its best friend. And we were good friends.  I can remember playing with that lamb and having it follow me around the farmyard.  However it wasn't long before play turned into teasing in order to get the lamb to chase me.  The lamb soon learned that I wasn't a good friend at all, but a real certified pest.

The lamb continued to grow into a young buck sheep.  Two horns started to appear. I continued to tease it
at every opportunity and this young buck sheep became downright mean.  It became more than mean, it became vicious.  That buck would wait each night and morning for me to come out to milk the cow.  It would stand there with head lowered just daring me to come through the gate.  For a while I was able to drive it away with a club but before long I actually had to carry a pitchfork to hold that buck off while I milked the cow.

This situation continued until one evening dad substituted for me to milk the cow.  He went blithely through the gate and was met head on by the buck.  It darn near broke his leg.  He finally got the buck into a corral and arranged that very next day to transport it to his small herd of other bucks.  He wondered that evening what had caused that sheep to become so mean.  My innate feeling of self-survival told me that this was a good time to keep my mouth shut.