Who’s smarter — 2-day-old sheep, or three humans?: Linda Hall

Linda Hall's triple-trouble lambs are keeping her busy. Photo / Linda Hall

Linda Hall is a horse-riding lifestyler who worked for Hawke’s Bay Today for 31 years and now pens a fortnightly column. She lives in semi-rural Hawke’s Bay.

OPINION

Like any lifestyler, I’m learning as I’m lambing.

Out in the paddock feeding animals, I happened to glance over the fence and saw something moving close to the ground. As I got closer, I thought to myself “oh yeah here we go again”.

There were twin lambs, one already on its feet trying to suckle and the other sitting while the ewe did its job of cleaning it up.

Both looked good and healthy, so I left them to it. That was about 4.30pm. That evening at 9 o’clock, Mr Neat went out to check “his sheep”.

My phone flashed within minutes with a photo of another ewe and triplets. All three up and suckling. In the morning there was another set of twins. So, that was seven lambs in fewer than 18 hours.

Which meant I was on lamb watch. One of the triplets was very small so we gave it some colostrum a couple of times. It would also stand in the middle of the paddock and bleat, then run to the mother of one of the twins and get bunted away.

So the humans decided to take mother and triplets up to the shed and lock them in for a couple of nights.

We grabbed the little triplet standing alone in the paddock and the other two lambs. Mum followed us and in they went. Well, it wasn’t quite that easy, but we got them in the shed, which has a small, gated area.

The little triplet immediately escaped through a gap in the fence.

But the humans were not to be defeated.

We put blocks and planks of wood, bags of horse poo and whatever we could lay our hands on all around the perimeter to fill the gaps. We gave her a top-up and went off to bed thinking we had done a great job.

The next morning Mr Neat did his check. The little triplet was nowhere to be found. He could hear her, but she certainly wasn’t where the humans left her. He followed the sound and found her two paddocks over ... happily running around with her siblings.

Yep, the humans took the wrong ewe and her twins.

Luckily for the humans, the tiny two-day-old triplet was smarter than them. She made it out of the barricade, through two paddocks both with closed gates and back to her family.

All three are thriving, while the humans are feeling rather sheepish.