[waterbuffalofarmer]

Traditionally they take the lamb away and send to slaughter for veal,

Veal is from cattle not sheep. Lambs go off at 4 months anyway.

In france they kill the lambs at a few days to a week old and use the skin for leather gloves and the meat is a delicacy

[SallyintNorth]

I know that 'milk lamb' is a delicacy 'on the Continent', but having supplied this trade when I was on the moorland farm, it was fresh-from-the-hills straight-off-their-dams up to 15kgs deadweight they were wanting.  I've not heard about eating neonates.  I guess for a sheep dairying business, having an outlet for newborn lambs would be very useful.

[macgro7]

You know... in Leicester a lot of butcher shops sell "spring lamb".
My in laws buy it but having studied in agricultural college and worked with sheep, traded at the melton mowbray livestock market... I have never heard of that!!! 
Do you think they actually sell "baby lambs"? Or are they just lambs of small breeds? I.E. Cheaper to buy for the butchers? They still sell them for at least £80-90 per 12kg lamb!!!
And apparently it's still cheaper than buying from chopped up pieces from the supermarket.
So what do they actually sell? Maybe they go to the fields in june and nick some lambs!

[SallyintNorth]

Spring lambs are that year's lambs, coming in to a market which has hitherto been selling hoggs (last year's lambs) since Christmas.

Farmers who lamb early indoors can have their first lambs ready for the spring lamb trade in March, or even earlier in some counties. Up here in north Cumbria the spring lamb trade starts in April, and is just a very few lambs until later on in May when the first of the outdoor-born lambs start to appear in the mart.

We usually have a few early single lambs ready in May, at 12-14 weeks old.  They'll have been born and reared outside, born in February or occasionally late January.  The bulk of our lambs are born in March, and are still ahead of the majority of the hill and moorland lambs to get to the fat mart.

We've been known to get £100-£120 a head for spring lambs in May.  Lambs of the same breeding will fetch £85-£95 later in the season.

[Hevxxx99]

Milk lamb is indeed a delicacy: lamb that is still unweaned and usually 4-6 weeks old.  So indeed is effectively the sheep equivalent of veal.

Seems there's a fair old profit in it too

http://www.londonfinefoods.co.uk/product/CFFpmflwholelamb/Pyrenees+Milk+Fed+Lamb+Entier

[SallyintNorth]

Wow.  Teeny chops!  Thanks for that Hexvxxx99. 

I wonder if the Blackie lambs that come off the Scottish hills in August and are shipped to France as 'milk lamb' are sold and eaten in the expectation that they're only 6 weeks old...