The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: twizzel on February 24, 2014, 12:37:57 am
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I have a 3 week old lamb thats been on the bottle since a couple of days old. She came to me and was on bottles for the first couple of days and drank fine, then went onto the shepherdess feeder for the last 3 weeks and has again been fine, one of the strongest lambs in the group.
Today I put them back on bottles as they were emptying the shepherdess as soon as it was refilled, and I wanted to ensure they were all getting the right amount of milk. She won't take the bottle at all now. I put her back on a shepherdess in another pen with fresh milk and she won't take that either. Managed to get a small amount of milk into her but she just doesn't want to know.
I will try a Pritchard teat tomorrow but if that doesn't work is it better to tube feed her or leave her get really hungry? She went 14 hours today without milk and still wasn't fussed but must have been hungry. Any ideas? So frustrating!
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Sounds very odd indeed. If she's still strong, and is eating hay and cake, I'd be inclined to leave her until she sees sense! Offer her a bottle whenever you are doing a feed, but don't force her.
I assume you've checked she hasn't got any sores in or around her mouth ? (Orf for instance - we had one terribly badly affected last year, mind it never stopped her guzzling her milk even when all her sores bled when she did so. Poor wee mite.)
Other things - milk temperature, the brand and mix (same brand? same recipe? same water?) Sometimes the silly little things don't even recognise it if it's cooler or warmer than they are used to ::)
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As Sally says, if she keeps refusing milk and isn't topping up on hay or hard feed I'd be inclined to suspect something else is going on. Have you taken her temperature?
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Well this morning she drank a whole bottle :innocent: bloody lamb... testing my patience!
She has a few sores on her nose from where they got quite rough knocking each other off the shepherdess when they were on it. It's not orf though, having dealt with that last year I'm certain it's not the cause. The strange thing was she drank fine yesterday morning like milk was going out of fashion, then refused point blank the next feed and the feed after that. She's well in herself and alert, they are starting to nibble creep now too so I'm not too worried. Just frustrating!
Thanks for your quick replies :)