Sheep Milk Custard....Oops!

Yesterday's victory was getting Violet's milk flowing...finally!  Ian and I flipped her onto her bum and managed to get some milk to shoot out of each teat.  I have never been so happy to see a squirt of sheep's milk.  Despite this major step forward I was still concerned that Cobalt was not getting enough to drink.  Between bottle feedings he was looking thin and when he did nurse it was only for 30 to 45 seconds at a time.  After speaking to the vet, I ruled out mastitis; however, I began to worry that perhaps Violet's teats were too engorged for Cobalt to really latch on to properly.  Her udder was huge!  And very firm.  There is no doubt that it was very full.  As a mother who breastfed her babies, it did not look comfortable for either ewe or lamb.  Something had to be done.

Fast forward to today.  GG is down vising us to attend my graduation ceremony on Wednesday.  She took one look at Violet's gigantic udder and pronounced, "It is too bad that Ed [my paternal Grandpa who is my farming inspiration] isn't here.  He'd tie that sheep up and milk her out."  And I thought to myself, "Heck, I am part of Grandpa's legacy.  If he would milk her out, why can't I?"  And so, this evening after getting the boys to bed, I gathered up a pot, a pitcher of warm water, Charlotte's dog collar, and a Tupperware of ewe pellets and headed down to the barn.  I tied Violet up so that she could eat her pellets, got down on my knees, positioned the pot under her belly, wet my hands and with my forehead resting on her side, I milked.  And I milked.  And milked.  And milked.  Twelve ounces of milk later she was empty.

Cobalt was my assistant in this process, of course.  He was right in there under Violet's tummy bunting her udder and nursing in short spurts.  He loved when I managed to shoot a stream of milk right at his snout.  The downside of this, of course, is that he got his hooves right in the pot of milk more than a few times and well as some hay and who knows what else.  I just did not feel good about feeding the contaminated milk right back to him given his almost zero immunity.  So, I decided to strain and pasturize the milk first.  It was fairly easy to get the milk up to 72 degrees C for the 15 seconds required for pasteurization.  Unfortunately, this also turned the milk into custard.  Oops!

Now I am in possession of 12 oz of sheep milk custard and the conundrum of how to feed this back to Cobalt.  There is a distinct possibility that it is now too thick to flow through a bottle nipple, though I will not know for sure until my 10:30 pm feeding attempt.  If this is the case then I might try to water it down with milk replacer.  Or else try to feed it to Cobalt in a dish?

I suppose that there are worse issues to have than how to feed your lamb delicious custard instead of boring old milk.  Maybe he will not even want it now that Violet's teats are so soft and supple?  We will see - the milk saga continues...