A lamb orphanage on a remote Scottish island has taken in its first resident of the year, a tiny newborn lamb named Mr Frazier.
Tully and Chris MacIntyre opened their home on the island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides to orphaned lambs four years ago, and charge crofters £20 to look after little and sick and orphaned lambs.
Last year the MacIntyres took 27 lambs into their care, where they were all fed five times a day with powdered milk.
In order to keep up with every little lamb’s demands, Chris MacIntyre uses baby slings to carry around the smaller lambs, as well as to keep them warm.
He even puts the sick or premature lambs wrapped up inside the couple’s AGA to keep them cosy when it gets too chilly.
The couple usually stay in Seattle, come to the Hebrides every lambing season.
Chris MacIntyre said: “I have been called the lamb lady. It’s a community service to the crofters because they are so busy.
“Mr Frazier is the first lamb to come in this year, he arrived earlier this week. His mum was not doing well, the crofter called me and let me know what was going on.
“April is when I get slammed. You can’t ever be prepared.
“The first year I had five, the second 15, the third year about 25 and last year 27 lambs.”
Mrs MacIntyre is retired now, but was previously a hospital nursing assistant in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the University of Washington.
She continued: “I missed babies and lambs took over. They are all different, they are like kids, they all have a different personality.
“I know them all by name, I have to have some way to differentiate them. They all have different baas too.”
Once the wee lambs are all grown up, they are returned to their crofters, an action that isn’t always easy for Mrs MacIntyre.
She said: “I have to learn to let go because I know some of them go to market.
“I can’t keep them, I have to give them back. It was hard the first year.”