Poor wee Skinny Mini is no more. I suspected as much when I didn't see her at the morning hay fight, and then realised I couldn't recall seeing her for a few days.
She was only 2 years old, but they had been two quite hard years.
We found her as a tiny lamb waiting under a flax bush for a mother that never came back.
She sat there, bright-eyed but silent, until we picked her up and carried her down to join the pet lambs of that season.
Each feeding time, the lambs would jump and jostle for their share of the milk, and Skinny Mini would quietly wait her turn.
No pushing, no bleating or complaining.
I made sure she had a special bottle of her own and gave her all she could drink, but she was never a greedy gobbler.
She took what she got and went about her business.
Summer came and went and the other lambs grew big and fat; Skinny Mini stayed small and meek.
Right through winter we kept her by the house where she could get extra food - bread and sheep nuts, hay and balage.
But she was so tiny, and that winter several times we found her upside down, unable to get back up.
We would stand her up again and she would carry on eating as normal, but she didn't really thrive.
She got stuck in a ditch, too weak to pull her legs out of the sticky mud.
But once again we fished her out and she carried on quietly.
When the grass came away in spring, she went off with the rest of the flock, and ate her fill of everything, every day.
But still she was small and delicate, and alone among the pet lambs she was also quiet, never bleating.
Then in the hot days of summer, she was the only one of the whole flock to be fly-struck.
I couldn't believe it when I found her, uncomplaining but obviously miserable, standing by herself in the paddock.
Once she was cleaned up, though, she seemed to recover well.
Going into this winter she was in the best condition she had ever been in, and I was hopeful her troubles were over.
I watched her as I fed out hay, and congratulated myself as she found the gumption to push in for her share.
She had started joining in with the others and looked well.
She was still meek little Skinny Mini, but it seemed she would make it after so many brushes with death.
I stopped worrying if I didn't see her for a few days at a time.
Now her body has been found, up in the high paddock.
There's not much more to say, except sorry, Skinny Mini. I let you down.