Goldie Joins The Lamb Flock

Goldie is quite comfortable with around the other lambs. 

Goldie is the latest of my bottle fed lambs, since she is so much younger than the others, I decided to hold off putting her into the flock until she was strong enough to stay out of the way of the boisterous gang. After only one day in with them, she's learned to hold her own.

Goldie's ewe name is Ewe-Con Gold.

Goldie with Tan and Connie

She's a mixbreed sheep-- mostly St Croix and Barbados BlackBelly. Since I don't really know the background of her mom, there easily could be some other breeds in there too. One thing that Hawaiians seemingly like to do is mix the breeds all up. They will purposely mix their dogs, rabbits, horses, cattle, and pigs. As a result it is difficult to find anything purebred here. A buyer needs to be knowledgable because that rabbit advertised as New Zealand White is most likely a white mixbreed rabbit. I've heard people say that in their litter of puppies they got a chow, a lab, a pointer, and a border collie! And they advertise them as such. For some reason the concept of purebred isn't alive a well on this island.

Anyway, back to Goldie. Little Goldie was a small lamb who's mother wasn't the smartest sheep on the block. Hubby puts it this way, "That ewe didn't come from a thinking family!" Mom kept running around the pasture, climbing up and down the gullies, with poor little Goldie trying to keep up. After 5 days of this, little Goldie was getting no larger. I guess too much exercise and too little nursing time. I wasn't planning to keep this lamb, but it looked like she might die at the rate she was going. So I separated the two, training Goldie to the bottle. Mom barely noticed that she was minus a lamb! This behavior is not what a shepherd should be choosing in replacement stock, but I have since become quite fond of Goldie's personality, so she will stay and become a flock member. I hope she has inherited better mothering instincts from her sire's side. But if Goldie proves to be a poor mother too, then she won't be bred anymore, nor will her offspring be added to the flock.

 Goldie's now strong, very active, and very outgoing. She's the first to show up when I come with the bottles. She's the initiator of the lamb races. Smallest of the group, she the boldest and smartest so far. She is so endearing that I can't help but like her.