Whilst I’ve been in lockdown I was given the really great opportunity to hand rear 9 ducklings and 2 lambs. It’s been a fun and rewarding once in a life time opportunity. I have to get up at 7.50am every morning to feed the lambs their milk. To start with I couldn’t go to bed until 10 because they were having 3 bottles and the last one was at 10.00pm.They let us know when its time for their evening milk time by baaing.

I asked the sheep farmer if I could halter train them and he said yes, so I have and we take them for walks down the road. They like eating grass, chives, blackberry leaves, hay, apples, carrots and celery. We move the lambs pen round the lawn, but they have escaped a few times when we didn’t peg it down or I was too slow getting through the gate and they pulled up runner beans, ate the fruit bushes and trod through the carrots and lettuce!! When they arrived I could carry one under each arm, now I have to put on their halters to get them back !!

The ducklings arrived 3 days old, they lived in the shed until they were 3 weeks old, then they went out in a pen we made in the garden during the day and in at night. They ate chick crumble wetted down to start with and then they had layers pellet wetted down and then they went on to dry pellets. They squawked a lot. They had a small pond made from a large deep plastic tray. They dug holes in the lawn with their beaks. They like lettuce and cabbage and they enjoyed playing with a mirror we put in their run. The ducklings have now gone back to Able Hands as ducks!!

I really enjoyed having the animals in this stressful time and it kept me busy.

Emma Tanner