Luna and Birdie

Is this not the odd couple? The little one, Luna, is a bit of a hard luck story. Her mom was down and paralyzed for nearly the whole last month of her pregnancy. We don't know why or how it happened. She was bright, alert, eating normally and interacting with the rest of the ewes and lambs....just couldn't stand up. She didn't seem to be in any pain, so I opted to feed, water and keep her on clean bedding. My hope was that when she lambed, she might recover. Unfortunately, that was not the case. She didn't even seem to know she was in labor, when it happened. Mike pulled all three lambs, two of which we could never get to breathe. Luna is the only survivor of that sadness and it was touch and go with her for quite a while. We named her Luna because she was born on the Vernal Equinox, the night of the "super moon".

Four hours later, that very same night, Birdie was born. Birdie was also from a set of triplets and was a giant compared to her two siblings. The next morning, it was obvious that Birdie was so big and so strong she was taking nearly all of the milk. Her poor little brother and sister were just barely getting by. So, Birdie was picked to go on the bottle full-time and become a companion for Luna. They are so funny together and completely different personalities. Birdie is feisty, noisy and is a bottomless pit when it comes to the bottle. Luna is sweet, quiet and only wants to take her bottle if she is being held in my lap.

I'm not quite sure what the future holds for these two girls. They'll need to be integrated into the flock and spend time with the other lambs, but at this point I don't think Luna can handle it without getting hurt. I'm sure Birdie, on the other hand, will jump right in with all four feet and never look back (except when I show up with the bottles!).

I imagine you're asking......how in the world did I come up with the name Birdie? Though I wanted to name her something that was the opposite of Luna (because she is), but somehow the name Sunshine just didn't fit. Sitting with them one afternoon, Luna in my lap and Birdie, bright-eyed and jumping around, her face just looked like a bird to me. (And I had to come up with something because Mike was starting to refer to her as Tic.....as in Luna-Tic!)