We lost Bebe yesterday. At 11 years old, she was the longest-lived of any of our sheep. Bebe was one-quarter Katahdin and 3/4 East Friesian and was my second-best producer for her 5 years in the dairy. She gave us 11 beautiful lambs in 5 seasons, before she had to retire in 2014, with partially paralyzed hind legs after a rough lambing. She lived 6 years in our pet flock giving us all a lot of joy. She was a character, with a deep baa, a voracious appetite and a love for lambs, both her own and other mothers’. She had a gorgeous charcoal-grey fleece that Jackie Post loves for felting, and has contributed to many beautiful felted pieces of Jackie’s. I won’t repeat myself here in telling Bebe’s life story–I wrote a long bio of Bebe back in 2016.
Bebe had her ups and downs in recent years, as her partially paralyzed hind legs got weaker, but she retained her gusto for life and always rallied. I had been watching her for weeks now and it was clear that getting around had become a painful struggle and her time had come. Our beloved animals trust us to make that decision for them. But that doesn’t make it any easier. We will all really miss her.
