I see that Liam has a large following out there, and Maria and I just went out to the barn to check on him, and I’m happy to report that he seems to be doing well, he is nursing, up on his feet, curious and alert. I think he is still moving a bit stiffly, but that is to be expected. I have to play detective about what happened.

Another chapter in the real, unpredictable and surprising life of animals.

Liam is three days old, the age when lambs are released from their stalls in good weather. He spent several hours with the donkeys, who sniffed him and checked him out as we watched and then went off to graze. Our donkeys, including Simon,  have always been around sheep and often been around lambs. Simon can get grumpy around food, but has never bothered a ewe or lamb.

Simon is a guard animal and he has challenged almost all of our animals when he first meets them – Lenore, Red, Minnie the barn cat, and certainly Rocky the pony, although that was different. He usually tries to nip them and they skitter away and that’s that. He has never harmed any of them.

Liam and his mother were up near the Pole Barn and we went inside to have lunch. When we came out to check on them, the donkeys looked agitated, Lulu and Fanny were trying to get Susie away from the lamb and Simon was off grazing. We chased the donkeys off and Liam and Susie walked back to the Pole Barn. Maria noticed blood on Liam’s back and I saw feces smeared along his side, as if he had been pushed down in it. I know those symptoms, they are the signs of a donkey nip or stomp. Liam was hyperventilating and stumbling, he looked exhausted. He must have been, I imagined he was running around quite a bit.

Not really sure which one tangled with him, I’d have to guess Simon. If he wanted to kill Liam, he could have done in a flash, he might have gotten annoyed with him, or Lulu and Fanny (or Simon) may not, for some reason, have recognized Liam as a sheep. That’s my best guess, we have never had a lamp as white as that, one who stands out as he does.

But the truth is we will never know for sure.  Animals are never completely predictable, and life on a farm is not as cute as photographs of life on a farm. We separated Simon and Lulu and Fanny in their own pasture with their own hay and water and they will be kept apart for a week or so. Tomorrow I’m releasing both Liam and Pumpkin from their barn stalls, the weather looks warm and dry and the donkeys will be able to see them through the fence and get used to seeing them with the sheep. That should do it.

There was, as there always is, some of the usual obnoxious second-guessing from a few people, but I do not argue my life or decisions with armchair diagnosticians on the Internet, they are digital pests, the price of openness. This was a first in nearly 100 lambings. Simon, I should say, is by no means an aggressive donkey, he is just a donkey and he is very protective of Lulu and Fanny and the sheep. In a few months, he will be protecting Liam just as fiercely as he was protecting the sheep today. He does not tolerate outsiders near the sheep. He is just doing his job, as he was when he tried to drive Rocky, the blind pony away. This is how male equines protect their herd, they keep prey away.

Animals do not live in paradise or no-kill shelters, they are our partners on the earth, they share our joys and travails, they deserve to be respected for what they are, not for what we might wish them to be.

Anyway, I know there is concern and I wanted to explain what happened as best I can. He’s looking good, I think he’s fine, and thanks for the caring.