The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Paul and Caroline on April 17, 2016, 04:21:54 pm
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Hi - I am a newbie lamb keeper and 10 days ago acquired 6 pet lambs that were then about 5 days old. They are on lamlac milk replacer taking 300ml 4 times daily. They have access to pellets and appear to be eating a small amount of them. They are indoors at the moment and in a well ventilated outbuilding in a pen which I keep very well stocked with straw. They also have plenty of fresh water. My question is that one or two of them have slightly dirty bums and I suspect they are having runny poos - how do I tell the difference between a gippy tummy and full blown scours? I have done 2 full bedding changes so far however today I noticed the smell of ammonia was very strong. They appear to be well in themselves (as far as I can tell) with good appetites and very alert. Am I changing the bedding often enough or should it be more frequent. I will be buying some ground sanitiser tomorrow to treat the floor once the bedding is cleared - any advice would be gratefully received
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You also want t give them hay - they need to develop their rumen, and milk and pellets are not going to do that.
What colour and particular smell is the droppings, especially the runny ones? Are their stomachs bloated too, or just runny bums?
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Hi Anke
I mainly see deposits on their fleece and tails as opposed to actual droppings. The Straw is quite deep and I haven't actually seen them defecate recently. The deposits are dark brown but sometimes are a 'tan' colour. After a feed their bellies are quite swollen but I would expect that and after an hour the 'bloating' disappears. I will go and get some gay tomorrow. Interestingly when I replaced the bedding today they all had a good munch at the straw. I had been told not to give them hay until they had been weaned off the milk replacer......
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Yep the yoghurt is a good idea, and milk temperature is important too. Many farmers will get their lambs used to cold milk, as it is easier and quicker to feed. It may also be a good idea to make the milk up a bit thinner (i.e. use a bit less powder for same amount of water) to see if that's helping.
My goat kids go mad for readigrass (from the horsey section) at the moment, but that is probably way out of the budget for rearing lambs (I have pedigree dairy goats).
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Hi Twizzel - the pen is 10' x 6' so not sure if that qualifies as small or large? I take the point about temperature and will work towards a constant temperature cold milk solution. I am working to a 5:1 milk powder/water mix so based on what you have suggested I will dilute it slightly. I will also add some yoghurt to see if that helps.....
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Personally, I stop feeding milk when their tummies start to round out. You can overfill the abomasum, and they will get digestive upsets if the milk overflows it.
What type of lambs are they? 4x 300ml at 15 days old is quite a lot of volume. I think Lamlac suggests 1.5L per lamb per day, does it? The milk I use is a 1L per lamb per day per lamb, but I rarely feed that much, and mine are good commercial Texel type lambs. At 15 days, mine would be on 3x 250ml, and I'd be working them towards 300ml for the first and last feeds of the day.
If their tummies are very full after each feed, and they're on 4 feeds, they probably aren't getting hungry in between milk meals. So then they don't eat much straw, or hay if offered, which they need at that age.
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Hi Sally - yes Lamlac prescribes 1.5 litres per lamb per day (as a maximum) over 4 feeds so I was making sure that I was keeping within that limit (1.2 litres) although in hindsight I have probably gone up to that volume too soon. I am also following the Haynes manual which recommends keeping them on milk until they are 35 days old and eating about 250g of pellets daily. They barely touch it at the moment. I can't put them out on grass yet as my fencing isn't adequate (contractors are coming in next week to sort it). I have 5 Texel X ewes and a Suffolk ram. I will reduce the volume and concentration, add yoghurt and introduce Hay and will see how it goes.
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The Lamlac recommendations about quantity to be fed shouldn't be taken as prescriptive for all lambs, given the huge variation there will be in size, breed and appetite. They can be no more than a guide. Fortunately I have not had to bottle feed many of my lambs, but they have generally decided when they've had enough.
I would just try and keep their back ends as clean as you can. That stuff sets like a rock, and I usually wash off what I can then carefully snip off the rest with nail scissors. A smear of of Vaseline then stops it sticking again.
I don't know how much 'ground sanitizer' is, but a 25kg bag of hydrated lime from a builder's merchants will be about £9.50 and so the same disinfecting job. Just be sure to wear a mask when sprinkling it on to the ground before you put the straw down. Good luck with your babies!
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A 10' x 6' pen works out at 10 sq ft per lamb, so will soon get mucky. If it has a concrete base there's nowhere for the urine to soak away to (why I prefer earth floors in the lambing shed). Smell of faeces is a good clue - healthy ones smell very little, ones from a lamb with cocci have a distinct, sweetish smell and are often tarry in consistency. I turn out lambs as soon as I can, provided they have access to shelter at night or if the weather's bad.
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We use sorgene 5 as a disinfectant- pretty potent stuff even when diluted but will kill most bugs including orf. I would feed according to the bag so lamlac is 200g to 1 litre of water- would keep to this otherwise you will have full lambs but full of weakened milk.
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Been thinking about your bedding worry. We tend to start each area with a good dusting of lime a good shavings/sawdust bed, then straw on top. Use, then lime again, shavings, dust straw etc etc. this way the bedding drains well away from the lambs and ewes. Think Deep litter.
we don't muck it all out until the end of lambing. The bed gets to about three inches deep, maybe more in some barns, surprisingly dry.
The type of straw you use also is key. The yellow bright shiny stuff is nice bright and makes everything nice but we find the shorter duller straw to be far more effective when it come s to absorbancy and coverage . Long bright straw gets pulled everywhere, short stuff stays put.
Hope that makes sense, cos I tend to do the reverse :roflanim:
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Wheat straw tends to stay long, barley straw to shatter.
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I prefer barley straw. Also it's good for the rumen.
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Pet lambs have a tendency to endlessly gorge and get pot bellies and you need to ensure you are not overfeeding.
I will say though:
I am extremely wary of taking on orphans. What needs to be ascertained before taking on anyone elses stock is whether the lamb had colostrum within the 24 hours - if not then can of worms. If the farmer is a good sheepfarmer and made sure of this in part of his management then there are no concerns.
Farmers who let stock roam adhoc and poorly manage stock cannot guarantee this and can advertise orphan lambs to get rid quick. Years ago they would of just killed them.
It is extremely dangerous to your health and family (more childbearing women) not to be exposed to zoonotic diseases which comes of poorly managed farms. Community farms are prone to cryptosporidium which is the effect of lack of colostrum and poor hygiene from the start. Hence the scours and children not scrubbing their hands and nails leading to the bug.
Smallholders do not need to be endlessly disinfecting, bedding, liming etc its not necessary if your stocking density is good and general hygiene is acceptable. We have raised many orphans from over 500 sheep and most certainly didn't spend hours rebedding and no incidences of death at all from this. Trouble is if one lamb is carrying a virus you need to confine it from the others quickly.
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Hi everyone thank you for the replies and advice. Our lambs are doing ok and currently on 1 litre of lamlac over 4 feeds (per day) and also building up their consumption of pellets (300g at the moment) between them each day and they have ad lib hay. I am probably overdoing the cleaning out based on your comments and I do a twice weekly full bedding change, replacing with a dusting of sanitising powder direct on the floor and then another dusting on top of the freshly laid straw. I rotate where I put the pen and wash the concrete floor with a weak Jeyes fluid solution once I have moved the pen. I don't have a lot of choice re the type of straw I can get and it is the bright yellow long stuff that I use. The main reason I tend to change the bedding is that the ammonia smell of their urine can get quite strong and as someone said earlier, it's a concrete base so the urine doesn't soak into the ground. I am putting about 6" of straw down which may be excessive(?)
"farmers Wife" the lambs were about 3 days old when I got them and the farmer assured me that they had been fed plenty of Colostrum and had not been outdoors but kept in his nursery pens until I took them.
One of the lambs developed bloat-like symptoms with a distended belly and went off her legs all in the space of about 20 minutes. On the vets advice we gave 10ml of cooking oil and 10 minutes later she did a huge fart which almost blew her back legs off and she was right as rain! As newbies though watching her suffer and apparently dying before our eyes was not a pleasant experience....
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I have a similar situation.
One of our neighbours is a farmer, really nice man, lived with his mother but she passed away end of last year, so he is on his own with a cousin who pops in on him.
Yesterday he arrives with 3 lambs, one 4 days old, one 2 days old and one just born ????, still wet.
He has leukemia and had just come out of hospital and his cousin couldn't cope with the lambing and hes not allowed to go near the sheep.
He was very upset and pleaded with me to take the lambs and do ' right by em ' ????
I keep a closed flock so its against my better judgement but l had to help.
Other folk are helping him too, how could you not hes in his 70s !
The 2 younger ones l did both their navels with iodine, he said they all had watery mouth powder at birth and colostrum.
One was really empty, yelling, gave her and the other older one a bottle, took some persuasion.
The little guy however was not looking good. Weak and had no idea how to suck.
Spent hours afternoon and last night coaxing him to suck, too scared to tube , gave him a packet of colostrum to be sure he had some.
Fighting my way through this calamity and looking out the window theres a fire blazing about a mile and a half away in the rough heather land, fire men and police ???? So now l am ringing my sister who has a farm to bring her stock box and horse box over in case we need to evacuate ! Finally got the wee man to take a full 200ml by 2am, while watching this fire through the sitting room window, phone in hand ! Had a couple of hrs sleep on the settee inbetween making like a meerkat watching the fire.
All lambs took a bottle this morning, l am relieved and drained.
Have a question....... lve had the lambs in the utility room overnight, keep them warm and easier to feed.
What to put them in a hay shed l have, would they need a heat lamp or now they are feeding would they snuggle up and keep each other warm ? Haven't needed to do anything like this before my girls are pretty self reliant ????
Any input gratefully received. By the way l have no intention of putting them anywhere near my sheep for a long time yet untill lm sure they are 100% no risk to my flocks.
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You're a hero, kelly58 :hug:
I only give lambs heat if they're cold - mouth feels cold to the touch - and not feeding. Once they're feeding happily, they'll be fine in a covered building with a box or something draughtproof to climb into for a bed, and lots of straw, especially when there's more than one and they can snuggle up together.
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Thank you Sally :thumbsup: Have put them in, they have plenty of room. Just had feed so all snoozing, not snuggled up though yet. ????
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Phew Kelly what a night! Glad they settled.
Caroline , please try and put shavings down underNeath straw for drainage, it will help absorb and drain, we have concrete floors too!
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I had great success this week - a lamb still on mum but being topped up was scouring and very smelly. I washed her bum well with Hibiscrub removing all the poo and given Live goats milk yoghurt from Supermarket - 20ml in a syring twice a day. Worked an absolute treat within 24 hours. Kept her on this for a week. She loved it!
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I have 5 orphans I am feeding atm, from my own flock I never buy in orphaned lambs anymore. I find that when I move them over from whole milk they seem to do the same, runny poos and such. I give them yoghurt, a little in their milk everyday but only in 1 of their feeds. Also according to the milk replacer (some are different of course, I use Enilac by volac) it says 250g of milk powder to 2 litres of water; I add 200 ml extra water to it, so it is slightly watered down and not too strong. Also yes plenty of hay for them to nibble on, also a few pellets too, I use my local CCF farming store which has its own brand of lamb growers pellets, they do have soya in though but the orphans are usually reared for slaughter anyway (I did try Wynnstay once or twice but they hated it, a bit too bitter I think). I usually fill a medium container with water for them, about halfway, and they drink quite a bit. It is essential they stay hydrated when on the bottle, especially powdered milk. If they don't really touch the water then between their bottles, afternoonish time, give them some warm water with honey in, they love that and it will keep them hydrated. Depending on how old they are and what the weather is like I put them outside during the day and they nibble at the grass; it really depends where you are and what the weather/grass situation is like, but I find it helps keep down disease as they're not in their pen all the time. Hope this helps and all the best with everything! :thumbsup:
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They seem to be settling down now and their consumption of pellets is up to 900g per day (between them). I haven't reduced their milk feed and they do have hay in a rack available. I am working to 35 days of age) before weaning however they are already looking a bit more rounded than I would have expected. I cant put them out on grass just yet as my fencing still hasn't been done (been cancelled twice now). I am thinking of making temporary pens in my field using hurdles until the stock and electric fencing is done. As I increase the pellets should I decrease the milk? I have noticed that they do not drink much water - I have a shallow bucket for them which I refresh every day.
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I know some people do wean at 5 weeks, but in my view it's too young. As I understand it, the rumen isn't fully developed until 8 weeks.
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I know some people do wean at 5 weeks, but in my view it's too young. As I understand it, the rumen isn't fully developed until 8 weeks.
Thanks for that sally I never knew. I have always been told to wean at a month old, I do usually give them 1 and a 1/2 months to 2 months before taking them off the bottle anyway.
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We now have one ourselves. He's a big boy but been so slow on his mum, a first timer herself, so been topping him up, was going beautifully, more a Molly but left with his dam cos she loved him.m so anyway, 36 hours ago he went off bottle, from being a real guts to no interest. That evening , tried him, went and fed the other lambs and with the idea of trying him again found him being more or less sat on by other cuddling up lambs, thank god was going back to try again, otherwise i think they would have suffocated him. So he now in the house with a pal, we ve given him orojet, he's being tubed three hourly with half milk and rehydion,ve aloso given him half ml Alamycin LA, he goes for little walks, has belly massages, will be giving him a little oil later when he s due another squirt Orojet. He shows a fight when he s given summat so he s fighting but is a little depressed. Will give him some more kick start tomorrow, space some things out a bit. Just to add after not taking the bottle he was tubed from then on in... Brought in later.
Eta we sadly lost the beautiful boy this morning, the only thing we can think is that his colostrum was inadequate. He was enormous, why didn't I double up :'(
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We bottle feed, soon to go to sucky bucket :excited: And they have milk til about 8 to 10 weeks. They have one evening hard feed, feed two added this aft for the first time. And water and some hay.