Little sheep Peter
and his "aunts"
Peter has been a new member of our "Young Sheep Group" for a month. He has settled into the group very quickly and Lia, Ben and Larry are now his friends for life.
Why did Peter look for a new home?
We get most of the young lambs every year before the Easter holidays. The young lambs are born and sometimes rejected by the mama sheep, because she has too many young and too little milk, because the sheep are too weak or even disabled. They remain lying and get no milk from the mama sheep. Actually they should die, but many of the farmers who then call us, of course want to help them.
Shortly before Easter we got Lia, Ben, Larry, Paul (who is unfortunately no longer alive) and now Peter from Salzburg Land.
"...It's about our sheep Peter, who was born on the 16th of February and also has a sister whose name is Paula. Unfortunately, the mother died of old age three weeks after giving birth...". The sheep owner called us in despair, because little Peter was upsetting everything in the sheep pen.
"Did you hear that, Larry and Ben? The nurses are talking about taking in a young sheep about our age. I wonder who's coming?" said Lia excitedly.
"Oh Lia, stay calm. Let's see who's coming. His name is Peter, yes, I heard that too," Ben replies.
Peter didn't want to drink from the bottle and got milk from his shank aunts
The animal-loving people bottle-fed Peter and Paula after the mother sheep died. Paula didn't cause any problems, but Peter didn't really want to.
"Oh come on. The bottle thing was boring. I had enough sheep mothers all around me, but they didn't want me to drink the milk from their lambs. That was somehow strange too. So I drank the milk from the bottle, just like my sister Paula. I didn't want to upset anyone.
Peter tried again and again to get milk from his "aunts". Slowly, animal anger spread through the sheep pen. Then one of his "milk aunts" had a young lamb of her own and now the little catastrophe began.
At some point, the newborn lamb mama no longer knew whether her own little lamb was drinking or whether it was the Peter again. The situation became unmanageable, because at some point she started pushing her own newborn lamb and Peter away. So the newborn lamb also caught too little milk.
(On the pictures you can see Peter with his sister Paula and his family at his previous owner)
"...We love our Peter, but he is slowly driving the sheep crazy..."
said a very nice but desperate voice on the phone. Peter should leave, but slaughter was not an option.
"Yes, I noticed that everyone was a bit relaxed. My God, I just wanted milk. But I didn't want to be a bottle-fed child either.
Peter was picked up by our Aiderbichl employee Klaus and now lives together with Lia, Ben and Larry at Gut Aiderbichl Henndorf.
"Yes, everything is fine, guys. I really like cuddling with Lia, she has the same white fur as me. She's a very pleasant lamb girl. It fits. And we get enough to eat here at Gut Aiderbichl. And we get petted a lot!"
So little Peter now found a family and lives together with sheep of the same age. They like to lie together in the shade under the trees. In the morning, when the first keepers come to the farm, the little lambs sing the morning tune - first and foremost Peter and Lia.
