Thank you all so much for your help. Yes I do have a sheep nipple, but the ewe doesn't seem to like the formula at all. She is eating solid food a bit and munching on hay, I just don't want her losing to much weight or getting t5oo stressed. The thing is, I'm a hunter/jumper rider and board my horses at a show stable a couple minutes from my house. I'm in 4-h and have been raising sheep for the past few years along with others who ride with me. We keep all our sheep out at the stable in one big herd and take turns caring for them. I knew that this summer I wasn't going to be able to make it out to my stable as much as I wanted for a couple reasons, so I decided to bring my sheep home. We had an old chain link pen from the previous owners, and it took me 2 days to clear out, but it turned out good in the end. I was only planning on keeping the sheep there for 2 months. I've already got a deposit on the lamb and I was going to take the ewe back once aschool started again. I considered taking my favorite guard dog from the stable, an australian shepard mix named Cash Dog, home for the summer to watch the sheep and take care of our armadillo problem, but my mother wouldn't hear of it. She's not quite as into animals as I am. No more animals! So the entire pen was lined with raiload ties and I thought safe. The sheep were in there for a good 3 weeks. If you could see the hole this big dog squeezed through. After digging, the fence is raised about 3 1/2 inches from the ground. The lady who owns the dog (we did locate her and call animal services) claims her dog is harmless and must have simply been curious about the sheep and that the sheep must have provoked it to make him attack. I have yet to witness a sheep provoke a dog into attack, but I suppose stranger things have happened. I made the point that being as the dog was on MY property, my sheep had every right to do whatever it pleased.
Anyways, the fact that the lamb sustained almost no injuries shows, I guess, that my ewe did a pretty good job of protecting her. I never did like the ewe. She was built down hill and no good in the show ring due to complete insanity, but she threw really nice lambs that always did really well. I really didn't like her because she was more trouble than she was worth sometimes. She broke my finger in Feb. But she fought up until the end. She forced me to take her for a walk the morning that she died. She was pretty brave and I'm sad to see her go.
Thanks again for all the advice. I'll try sweetend milk, and if she doesn't take that, i'll just see how she does on her own. I guess I'll give her all her shots tomorrow and go from there. I just don't see how that lady can claim her dog is harmless. MY dad says if one of his dogs ever turned and killed an animal, he would have taken it out back and shot it in the head, end of story. The really bad thing is, that the day after my ewe died, my neighbor spotted the dog roaming around loose again. The owner confirmd that the dog had once again gotten out. The animal control officer said that if the dog ever gets loose again and comes on our property, we are allowed to kill it and then have the cops pull the record of the attack and claim that we felt threatened. So I've got my gun waiting in the garage.