"Lambs a Leaping"

"Katie"

This is Katie the Black face lamb, she was one of our pet lambs, her mother was taken by a fox just after she was born.
She had to be hand reared, lambs are very difficult to raise if they do not get their mothers milk for the colostrum when first born. She had a lot of problems like joint ill, ticks, bloat and so on.
Katie was a mischievous little lamb, if you did not watch her she would come running into the house and make herself comfortable on the furniture.
I had even caught her in front of the open fire warming herself before now.
She would wait for me to come home on an evening from work, she knew she would get extra nuts from her
adopted mum "me". She would follow me around all day with the dogs, she thought she was a dog.
Katie was very playful and energetic she loved our collie "Cullan" and would often snuggle up to him in the garden.
Unfortunately she become ill just as she got to the year old age and we could not do anything for her, she passed away quietly, I was heart broken and still miss her terribly, we buried her in her favorite spot.

It has taken a long time to get over Katie as I became so attached to her, my husband bought some Cheviot lambs from a good bloodline in Skye.
They were tupped at the back end of the year to a £1000 guinea ram, we are expecting the pitter patter of hoofs mid April.
I just hope they all do well have no problems and the mum's look after their babies, I could not go through rearing another lamb only to have it die of one thing or another.
Someone once told me that "sheep were born just to die"
I thought this was foolish at the time but not anymore.