The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Tilly on February 08, 2013, 11:20:02 am
-
Hi everyone :wave:
I have always bought lamlac (ewe milk re placer) to feed or "top up" baby lambs, but I am asking the question has anyone any knowledge of using whole cows milk ?
I have pondered the idea many times, but now, as we have just started lambing, I remembered last year on the sheep forum that someone had said they, or their neighbour, had raised lambs on Jersey milk.
I have researched a bit and there are many references on raising lambs on whole cows milk and it being successful, even though the composition of the milk is different.
The situation has arisen ,we have just had a quiet suckler cow have her calf, and I am wondering whether to keep her separate and use her excess milk on any orphans :thinking: but have never tried raising a lamb this way before, so am a bit nervous as I certainally don`t want to make the lambs poorly.
Any thoughts......
Tilly
-
I wouldn't. My OH and I reared 6 lambs last year on lamlac, and his sister reared her lambs on calf replacer milk. Hers didn't finish half as quick as ours, seemed to carry more weight around their loin (hence was fatty) and their shoulder/back end weren't as well covered- they looked potbellied. They needed longer on milk- we weaned ours bang on 6 weeks and hers were still on milk at 12 weeks.
The protein and oil ratios are completely different, lamlac is expensive but it does the job. The cheapest place we've found it is mole valley farmers £34 for a 20kg bag (whereas everywhere else is £20 for 10kg).
-
Its not advised to use whole cows milk for lambs as it seems to be "stronger" and gives lambs an upset stomach. I know that milk replacers can be expensive but i'd rather spend the money on getting a good one and having a lamb thrive than to "save" money and have the lamb come down with scours etc.
Lamb milk replacer is made so that its as natural as you can get to the ewes own milk. there are other lamb milk replacers out on the market and not just lamlac, some of which are cheaper and give the same results.
Hope this helps
Katy
-
I've heard that cows' milk can lead to anaemia in lambs.
-
It would have been SallyintNorth rearing lambs with her Jersey's milk I believe. This milk would have come straight from the cow to the lamb, no homogenization no powders etc. I have heard it has been known for sheep farmers to select a cow due to calf before lambing for, and vaccinate it with the sheep clostridial vaccine so to be able to collect colostrum for orphans that would provide antibodies for the lambs. If I wasn't too lazy I would go get the book title and share :D
I was at my friends farm today and they had a hypothermic lamb. No lamb milk powder and I had no goats milk with me. That wee lambie had a small feed of calf milk replacer spiked with glucose and a spell in the aga and went back to happily suck from mum. I wouldn't normally do it, but when needs must etc.
So I would ask, are you planning on using calf milk replacer or milk fresh from the cow? In my opinion they are 2 very very different things ;)
-
Many many years ago when I was little I remember that pet lambs fed on cows milk had scours and often got stiff legs. Going onto powdered lamb milk seemed to cure it. Sorry I can't give more details but I was only 6!!![size=78%] [/size]
-
As colliewoman says, I've done it.
My own Jersey's milk, handmilked, straight into a bottle and into the lambs. They absolutely thrived on it, much better than on the ewe milk replacer in my opinion. And absolutely no scours - which frankly surprised me, but there wasn't any, which is less than I get on the ewe milk replacer.
I had to feed more quantity than I would of the ewe milk replacer - 1.5L per day per lamb as against 1L of the ewe milk replacer.
BUT - yes, of course there's a BUT ::) - I did find that if I took an orphan that had been on cow's milk and set it on a ewe, then it got scours, and real bad scours too - I lost two lambs and had a couple more really quite ill before their systems adjusted. So now I feed them half-and-half cow's milk and ewe milk replacer until they are past the possible-to-foster stage, after which they can go onto straight cow's milk if I want.
BH once tried one lamb on shop full-cream milk. The lamb died. I am pretty sure it needs to be untreated milk straight from the cow. Certainly unhomogenised and probably best if it's unpasteurised too.
There are quite a few farms around these parts who keep one or a couple of Jerseys for milk for the pet lambs, and everyone I've asked says they don't have any problem with lambs scouring.
I haven't tried it with milk from other than a Jersey, nor from a cow from a different farm. So we're talking high butterfat, high protein, full of local antibodies. Oh, and my Jersey's milk does not upset people who are allergic to cows' milk; apparently some lines of Jerseys don't have the mutation that causes the allergy. Whether or not that is relevant in terms of how their milk suits lambs I don't know - but I would certainly advise proceeding with some caution if using milk from a different breed, just in case.
Note that I would always ensure every lamb gets ewe colostrum or ewe colostrum replacer; I would never rely on cow colostrum alone, although I will give second and subsequent feeds of cow colostrum once a lamb has had a first good feed of ewe colostrum or ewe colostrum replacer.
I haven't heard of injecting cows with sheep vaccines and can't envisage myself doing that to any of my precious Jerseys :love: :cow:, probably in any case but certainly not unless it is approved by the vet.
Oh, and the lambs on Jersey milk and on half-and-half have all finished fine and reached good grades (good conformation is not expected of pet lambs generally.) I do think we've had less losses and less problems when they've been getting milk from the farm Jersey - it's a magical fluid, in my opinion! We've even kept three ewe lambs reared thus on for breeders and tupped two of them as hoggs - to a Shetland, mind, so just wee lambs, we are hoping. (One's scanned with twins ::), the other with a single :thumbsup:)
-
.......Gosh , that's really interesting, thank you all for your replies.
The cow I had in mind is one out of the suckler herd (on the farm -Simmental X ).I would be milking her by hand and directly putting milk in the lamb bottles, feeding straight away.
:thinking: ...........I think I will carry on with the lamlac,but when I get a strong lamb will carefully try with my cows milk and be monitoring the the effects very closely .
Thanks again
Tilly :wave:
-
Hi
The farmers up the road from me always rear orphan lambs on "straight from the cow" milk and they have Holsteins.
They claim to never have any problems with it at all. i was going to do it, but I buy my milk from them and unfortuntely Lamlac works out cheaper for me.
But as soon as I have cows, I will feed my orphan lambs with their milk.
Good luck, let us know how you get on, x