Lucy gets a new fleece of life

8:42pm Wednesday 25th July 2007

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IT'S a dog's life for Lucy the lamb - literally.

The four-month-old sheep was saved from certain death by animal lover Amanda Snape, 36, and now thinks she's a Jack Russell after swapping the farmyard for a terrace house in Darwen.

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Amanda, a Jack Russell breeder, spotted Lucy at a farm run by a pensioner friend of hers in Bolton-by-Bowland.

She was one of twin lambs whose mother died during birth. Lucy's umbilical cord got trapped around her neck, cutting off her blood supply, meaning she was born half the size of her twin and very feeble.

She would not take to feeding from another sheep so was placed in a box in a barn with little hope of survival.

Amanda said: "I walked into the barn and saw this tiny thing waiting to die and knew I was its last chance.

"I got a bottle of milk and she took to it although she wouldn't take to anything else.

"I took her home with me and have treated her like a baby."

Amanda began feeding Lucy with a syringe of ewe's milk, then a bottle of milk, and now finds it difficult stopping Lucy munching her out of house and home.

Amanda said: "She's a bit of a fussy eater. She's very fond of crisps but they have to be Walkers.

"She also likes digestives, but they have to be McVitie's.

"Apart from that she loves paper. We're redecorating at the moment, but instead of ripping the paper off the wall myself, I'm going to let her do it."

Lucy was five days old when she was rescued, and so needy that Amanda had to take her everywhere she went.

She said: We're quite famous in Darwen now. I take her out on a lead and walk her like one of the dogs.

"I've taken her to Sainsbury's, to my solicitors, and they all know her down at the market.

"The butcher doesn't like me taking her in his shop though because she puts people off buying lamb chops!"

Amanda is so worried about Lucy dying from a common sheep problem called 'rigging' - where lambs roll on their backs and develop lethal air pockets in their lungs - that she lets her sleep in her bed.

She said: "I sleep on my front and Lucy lies on my back. People think it must be uncomfortable but you get used to it."

Amanda, who has a 12-year-old son Zach, hopes to move to a house with a bigger garden when Lucy grows bigger.

She said: "I couldn't give her up now, she'd die.

"Last week I took her back to the farm where I found her and put her in a field with all the other lambs, but she wasn't having any of it."

Zach admitted to being shocked at first when he came home to see a lamb in his living room, but has got used to her and sees her as another pet.

He said: "We treat her like one of the dogs, but she thinks she is one anyway!"