It’s a GIRL!! When the first baby lamb was born on the farm it was like Christmas morning! Hugs. Smiles. Hustle + Bustle. Pure JOY! Excitement to the MAX! Cottontail entered the world on a very cold day in January. She also came into a whirlwind of confusion. See, we had brought two ewes in the barn - one was obviously going to be having a baby or babies very soon. Sheep do not like to be alone, so we had brought in another sheep to stay in the barn while we waited for her baby(ies) to arrive. We had just came home from grocery shopping and the boys went in the barn to check on the sheep. Brant was super excited to find that a lamb had been born while we were gone. The lamb was pure white just like the momma who we anticipated having a baby…but the mainly black sheep seemed to be mothering the little one. Sure enough…Cottontail belonged to the ewe who was just in the barn as company!! (We considered that a God Wink - thankfully the right sheep was in the barn at the right time). A week later, we had all the excitement again…but with TWO babies!! It’s a GIRL! …and another GIRL!!! (…so before all this farm life, I was completely outnumbered by all these boys, so it’s fun adding girls around here all the time!)The first week of February, the ewe we had been waiting to have a lamb gave birth to a black and white spotted baby. It was so cute! It had a perfect black circle around its eye and looked like a little baby dairy calf. As we were all trying to stay calm, and OOh and AAh over the baby - our dog Daisy started going crazy! She was barking and pawing at the hay pile behind the new momma’s pen. Assuming she was going crazy over a mouse or some toy, we took her out of the barn so she wouldn’t add any stress to the new mother. Our curious 7 year old son went to see what she had been barking at and to our surprise…he found another baby lamb!!! Yes! Our dog could smell the lamb which had maneuvered its way out of the pen. Immediately, I yelled at Curtis, “THERE’S ANOTHER BABY OVER HERE.” He came running over, scooped it up, and was so relieved to find it was breathing. He placed it back with her mom, but the mom kept rejecting her, nudging her out of the way, and ignoring the baby. As we watched, it started to squirm through the fence and went back to the same spot we had just found it! The boys put a board up and we placed the baby back in, but unfortunately, it was continuously rejected. To make sure it was getting colostrum, the boys would take turns holding the mom and letting baby “RaeRae” attach for her nutrients. We did this every couple of hours for the first 24 hours of RaeRae’s life, then we decided our best route was to bottle feed her to keep her safe and alive. One lesson I have learned very quickly in this season of learning how to raise animals is to put my pride aside and ask for help! I can’t say it enough how nice the livestock community is and so generous with advice. After connecting with some friends who I knew could help, we chose the route of feeding RaeRae with whole cow milk. I’m sure the store manager got a kick out of me going in and grabbing up things for the new baby. Looking back…I probably looked like a first time mom just grabbing anything anyone suggested!! I came home with this HUGE bottle - Curtis just shook his head and helped me sort out what we really needed to keep and what could be returned. They say the first 48 hours is critical with a lamb - well we made it! Cottontail, Oreo (aka MooMoo), and RaeRae all survived and now are thriving!! Living a life set apart, - Rach Scripture: “Always be joyful, never stop praying.” I Thessalonians 5:16-17Quote: “Babies are like little suns that, in a magical way, bring warmth, happiness and light into our lives.”