| Lisette Has Two MomsHi all, Mark here. Happy Passover and Good Palm Sunday.The title of this bulletin is “Lisette Has Two Moms.” Despite the title, please don’t even consider removing this story from the library shelves at the U.S. Military Academy, or barring it from the performance calendar at the Kennedy Center. It’s not Woke, even though it’s about an awakening. My new favorite lamb, Lisette, is learning to navigate this complicated world.I introduced you to Lisette a couple of weeks ago. She was born to a very young mother who was somewhat neglectful and didn’t seem to have a great deal of milk. I got concerned that Lisette was failing after the first few days of life. A bottle of lamb formula, most of which she gulped down, seemed to give her the kind of boost she needed to be more insistent about following and nursing from her mom.Her inspiring will to live turned out not to be the end of the story. No matter how consistently she stuck with mom, she still seemed perpetually hungry. When the flock was milling around, she would constantly hunt for another udder to nurse from. She would try virtually anyone, including old barren ewes and castrated males (wethers), usually for no payoff.Lisette remained tiny, her health and energy uneven. I continued to offer her formula, which she sometimes took, other times resisted. When she was six days old, she got diarrhea, which sent me into a bit of panic (diarrhea can be deadly in lambs), and one of her eyes seemed nearly glued shut. Following guidance I found on line, I got Pepto Bismol and sugar-free unflavored Gatorade, the former to calm her stomach and the latter to restore electrolytes and prevent dehydration. They helped.The same day she got diarrhea, one of our older ewes, ear tag number 272, gave birth to a little ewe lamb. Like Lisette, this lamb was all black, and though she was six days younger, was already just as big as Lisette. I would be hard pressed to tell them apart. Out of devilment, Eric named the newer lamb Louisette.At this point I was keeping pretty close track of Lisette, and the next day I noticed her approaching 272 and starting to nurse. The ewe did not kick her away, as most ewes would when a strange lamb approaches. A few seconds later, when Louisette came around the other side, they continued nursing as if they were twins.By the time two days had gone by, while diarrhea had resolved, Lisette was still not quite the picture of health. Eric’s friend Susan, visiting for the weekend, noticed right away that she seemed to be shivering and standing with a weird posture. I gave her more Gatorade, followed by a little formula, and left the barn for Saturday evening not entirely confident of her fate.But by Sunday, Lisette had bounced back big time. Susan, again accompanying me at chore time, exclaimed “She’s positively gamboling;” it brought to mind the line from Psalm 114 in the Passover Haggadah: “the mountains skipped like rams, the hills like young sheep.” I believe her recovery and robust playfulness was thanks to 272’s regular and ample milk supply.At first I thought 272 allowed Lisette to nurse because she was confused, as I had been, over which lamb was which. But I’m now convinced that this is one of those occasional cases of lamb adoption. It became evident a few days later, when coming up for evening chores I found 272 alone with Louisette near the compost pile, baaa-ing in the frantic plaintive way ewes do if their lamb is lost. Even though her own lamb was with her, she didn’t stop crying until I led her back to the barn, where she found Lisette.I once read a highly entertaining book about how hormones shape animal behavior. It resonated; I felt it explained well the sway hormones had over my own life at the time. I was particularly intrigued by the description of how farmers could induce a lactating ewe to adopt an orphan lamb by sexually exciting the ewe, stimulating a flow of oxytocin, and simultaneously putting the orphan in front of her. As to how farmers discovered this trick, the book pointed out, you shouldn’t ask.I’ve since been unable to find the book again, but searching for it I found an impressive body of scientific literature about this adoption strategy, in such articles as “Vaginocervical stimulation of Ewes induces the rapid formation of a new bond with an alien young without interfering with a previous bond.” in the journal Developmental Psychobiology. You can find it in the National Library of Medicine’s Pubmed data base, if you act before the DOGE science-wrecking ball erases it.How did Lisette’s adoption come about? I swear, I had nothing to do with it. But it’s been fascinating to watch its evolution, because Lisette and her real mom, 376, never fully abandoned each other. They still sleep together every night, but Lisette divides her time. |
