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STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK Children—and even adults—got their fill of cuddling with five weeks’ old lambs. And one calculating tiny tot even took the bottle out of a lamb’s mouth and turned it back towards her own as Wynette brought her tiny menagerie to Chapter One Bookstore recently. “We were due for a cuddle-fest,” said the bookstore’s Kelly Cavanaugh. “The last one we had was with puppies from Mountain Humane and, then, reindeer before that.”
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Thomas Quinn isn’t very big—yet—but the lamb is even smaller.
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Wynette hand-picked the lambs—Fug, Lola, Sweet, Hazel and Wendy—from the 32 lambs she currently has on her farm north of Shoshone. The lambs ranged from two weeks to five. They’d already grown from 8 pounds at birth to 24 by two weeks. And they won’t stay tiny long, reaching 80 pounds or more—or full size--by six months. The lambs relished the extra attention they were getting from children, who sat on stools in the pen set up between book stacks, allowing the lambs to come up and nibble on their shoes and tug at their dresses. “They love to kiss. They like to nibble. They put everything in their mouth,” said Wynette as she watched one nibble on the wire cage. “They’re good with kids.”
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This young’un was very intentional about feeding the lamb before deciding the milk might be good for youngsters, as well.
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Cavanaugh saw the lambs while visiting Sawtooth Animal Center where Wynette works. And she couldn’t resist bringing them to the bookstore in Ketchum. “I couldn’t believe how cute they were,” she said. Two-year-old Thomas Quinn also couldn’t resist the lambs, eagerly taking his turn at bottle feeding one. “He loves animals and one day we hope we can have some at our home in Croy Canyon,” said Mykala Staver.
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The children weren’t the only ones who enjoyed the lambs.
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A couple of the lambs had soft fur; another’s was coarse. One boasted brown hair while the others were white. Their elders get a spring shorn, but these little gents and misses will wait a year before their curly locks are shorn. Chapter One Bookstore owner Conor Quinn said this is just one of the ways Chapter One bookstore has tried to bring to life the space between the books this past year. The bookstore hosted 25 events last year, including Mindset Time for children, a Fall Lantern Stroll and Story and book signings. It has unlocked its doors for girl’s groups, and it’s donated books to the valley readathon, while gifting gift cards to The Space and silent auction item baskets to organizations like the Wood River Land Trust.
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Thomas Quinn found that the lamb wouldn’t let go once its mouth was latched around the milk bottle.
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“We want to make this more than a bookstore,” Quinn said. “We’re trying to be involved with our community.”
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