LRS Care: Xiao Ma visitation report

Little Red Scarf is in Lanzhou, Gansu and Yunnan province and provides financial support and encouragement to children suffering from congenital heart disease. In addition, they provide families with post-operative care and help the children sustain a healthy lifestyle.

August 5th, 2014. It is getting dark after we’re done with visiting Hongyan and her family. We went directly to Xiao Ma’s house by taxi and planned to stay at her house for overnight.  Every time we came to this area, we stopped by Xiao Ma’s house.  We brought to them some watermelon and snacks. We stayed with them for half day on Aug 6th before heading back home.

When we visited both Hongyan and Xiao Ma, we gave each family bottles of vitamins. Take a look at these two little cuties watching their mom with the vitamins.

Xiao Ma is good at raising sheep and very diligent too. There are about more than 100 families in Xiao Ma’s village.  About half of them are raising sheep. There are five sheep in their sheepfold.  When sister Yuan and sister Guan visited Xiao Ma in April this year, the sheep was pregnant. Now we see their three new born (one female about 40 days old, two males about 30 days old)

Sheep can start breeding after 5 months old. A large sheep can breed 3 times in 2 years. In general, a sheep can be raised for up to 5 or 6 years. Sheep can be sold after three months old. Once sheep giving birth, it’ll breast feed its baby for up to two months. The baby sheep can graze, feed after 40 days old.  The source of feed for sheep is extensive: corn stalks, straw, leaves, alfalfa, and so on. 

Xiao Ma's house

Xiao Ma was preparing food for sheep

We brought vitamins for Xiao Ma

Xiao Ma is good at raising sheep and very diligent

Xiao Ma owns a small plot of farmland. She leased three acres to plant some vegetables for her own consumption . Xiao Ma admires the land owned by Hongyan. If she also had owned so much land as Hongyan and planted carrots, alfalfa, corn, she would have been able to feed more sheep.  With all that, her life will be more secured.  She can store up crushed corn poles to feed the sheep when there is no green grass in the winter

Xiao Ma began to prepare lunch for her sheep. She chopped up alfalfa, smashed calcium tablets, mixed sliced potatoes, carrots, wheat bran, added a little fine feed (one bag costs 30 yuan and can feed up to one month).  This is the delicious lunch for baby sheep. To help the sheep produce more milk after giving birth, adding more soup to its feed would help.  Xiao Ma added warm water to the cornmeal to feed her sheep.

It is not enough to feed only on the lunch specially prepared for the sheep.  Also need to provide fresh grass for the sheep to enjoy (with video). One baby sheep is pretty naughty. It eats milk from neighbor’s sheep. Xiao Ma keeps them in her own sheepfold. 

Through this visit, we understand that Xiao Ma’s plan to expand her sheepfold. She plans to add 2 or 3 more sheep to her sheepfold to provide a better life for her and her children. Let’s wish them the best!

Original article translated by Joe Hsu, edited by Yanyan Zhang