The Bummer Lamb

[Daisy]

I found this story and am sharing it here…

Every once and a while, an ewe will give birth to a lamb and reject it. There are many reasons she may do this. If the lamb is returned to the ewe, the mother may even kick the poor animal away. Once a ewe rejects one of her lambs, she will never change her mind. These little lambs will hang their heads so low that it looks like something is wrong with its neck. Their spirit is broken. These lambs are called “bummer lambs.” Unless the shepherd intervenes, that lamb will die, rejected and alone. So, do you know what the shepherd does? He takes that rejected little one into his home, hand-feeds it and keep it warm by the fire. He will wrap it up with blankets and hold it to his chest so the bummer can hear his heartbeat. Once the lamb is strong enough, the shepherd will place it back in the field with the rest of the flock. But that sheep never forgets how the shepherd cared for him when his mother rejected him. When the shepherd calls for the flock, guess who runs to him first? That is right, the bummer sheep. He knows his voice intimately. It is not that the bummer lamb is loved more, it just knows intimately the one who loves it. It’s not that it is loved more, it just believes it because it has experienced that love one on one. So many of us are bummer lambs, rejected and broken. But He is the good Shepherd. He cares for our every need and holds us close to His heart so we can hear His heart beat. We may be broken but we are deeply loved by the Shepherd.

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[oldgraymare2]

Thanks for sharing this story, Daisy.

It’s really moving, and it’s very beautiful.

 

[Donkey]

I raised a couple bummer lambs when I was a youngster.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[Minks]

Lol! Our family raised a few bummers, too, and they followed us around the pasture where we kept them, softly—and sometimes blatantly and mournfully— bleating as they raced to keep up with us when we’d play where they were pastured. We fed them milk freshly stripped from a Jersey cow, in a tall Pepsi bottle with an enormous black rubber nipple.

Our two favorites from all of those years were Merry Belle and Cockle Shell. It was the first time we were old enough to help, and the only time that Pappaw had two bummers at once—and their mothers were quickly sold.

They wanted those bottles and were quite persistent, butting us if we didn’t hurry. The day Merry Belle sucked the nipple right off the bottle and it stuck in her throat, my meek, mild, never-adventurous grandmother stuck her arm down the poor lamb’s throat to retrieve that nipple so that she could breathe, and those were the last bottles for those two!

They did meld with the flock, eventually, but, as in Daisy’s story, when they saw us in the barn lot, they would race along the fence of the adjacent pasture, and look at us with adoring eyes. Sometimes they’d race so fast that they’d stumble, do a somersault, and get back into their racing gait with almost no break in stride. They were hilarious little moochers!

They were supposed to have been sold when they reached a certain size, but my grandparents knew a potential rebellion on our part would demoralize family bonds, so “the girls” stayed on as breeders, and made excellent mothers to their offspring.

 

[Donkey]

Mothering orphaned lambs is a beautiful experience.
I mothered orphaned baby goats too…sweet in their own mischievous way.