Pet Lamb

I did a search on this topic and all the results were from the food section :rofl:

Just wondering if anyone has or knows about owning a pet lamb/sheep?
Would you be able to tell me the ins and outs of pet lamb owning?

The lamb in question is currently being bottle fed by its owner (a farmer), he is only 2 weeks old so still on 4 hourly bottle feeds. I know that I will need to look at getting him docked and castrated as well as the long term upkeep of crutching, sheering and worming...

What other things, pros and cons, can you tell me about this. I want to go in with eyes open.

Also I dont currently live in a residential area so I shouldnt have restrictions in that aspect at the moment, but if we do move by some freak chance, is there generally a restriction that I wouldnt be able to keep him then? Maybe thats a question for the coucil...

Anything else?

I had a pet lamb called Rambo once. He was banned from the garden because he ate all the wrong stuff and he got into the feed shed and made himself sick eating dog food. He also got into the garage and made himself sick licking car stuff. He used to tease the sheep dogs and make them bark hysterically at 4am.
We lived on a farm so I have no idea about council but the lamb we gave to people came back to live with us when she was grown up because being an urban sheep wasn't working out for her. We put her in a paddock with other ewes and she had lambs (there must have been a ram in there too).

They are generally not a problem to raise, but they can become a PITA when they are fully grown. Are you looking to keep it as a pet or do you want to raise it for the meat? If you want to keep it for a pet, be prepared that once it's fully grown they can be quite boisterous and if you have small kids they will knock them over. If it is 2kws old already, you wont have to keep up the 4hrly feeding. When we have poddys, by 3wks old thy are only being fed milk 3 times a day and they have water the rest of the time. By 4 weeks they are able to eat grass or if you want to you can buy some calf pellets to feed them as well for a bit of dry feed. It is important that you give a mix of green and dry feed as eating only one or the other isn't ideal. Too much green feed can make them scour (runny poo) which is a god-awful mess. If you do move to town, then you may have some issues with the smell affecting neighbours and you will have to clean up the poo so it doesn't get into the waterways when it rains. Oh and they will eat your garden plants so you may have to keep it in an area where it can't hurt your garden.

lambs can be quite hard to hand raise, they often aren't very tough and say die at the first hurdle, so I'd be prepared for it not to last past the lamb stage... Keep it in a warm spot, especially at night. They can be a real PITA too...we had one that got into all the dog biscuits (even chasing the dogs out of their kennels to get to their bowl which was right at the back of the kennel!) and literally followed you everywhere. Kinda cute at first, but gets annoying very quickly! Lol. Being hand raised it will also be very pushy. Good luck if you do get it, do you live on acreage so it has plenty of space? If you have room I'd consider getting it a friend too as they are herd animals, either another sheep or a goat or something.

I had two pet lambs as a child... Huebert and Humphrey :)
I loved them to bits...my parents hated them. Humphrey was always sick, and they spent a fortune on vet bills for him, he eventually succombed to whatever illness it was that ailed him.

Huebert was lovely but also cost a small fortune in vet bills I am told, and after all that trouble was run down by my dad in the driveway :( It was sad.

Anyway, my parents didn't replace them lol. Dad was a pig farmer, so after that, we stuck to the piglets.

I do remember them been very affectionate, lovely and didn't seem to mind me - they never bit me or anything crazy. Think I would still rather a pig though.