The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: Rosemary on May 05, 2016, 08:05:32 pm

Title: 2am feeds
Post by: Rosemary on May 05, 2016, 08:05:32 pm
We're bottle feeding two tiny lambs born on Monday. I confess, at 54, the 2am feed is killing me  ::)

Beats me why any woman would want to have a baby at this age. Mother Nature invented the menopause for a good reason  ;D
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: Possum on May 05, 2016, 08:50:07 pm
Couldn't agree more! I reared three orphan lambs last year, for the first time in about twenty years. Felt half dead most of the time. it's Ok when you are in your twenties and thirty's but much more difficult in your fifties. Particularly when OH is incapable of waking up and doing anything at 2am, so it is all down to you. ::)
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: Sbom on May 05, 2016, 09:49:38 pm
We feed at eleven and five and never lost one yet to starvation! Stay in bed!
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: Bionic on May 05, 2016, 10:05:27 pm
When I had 4 orphans last year I stayed up watching tv until 2am. That worked better for me than going to bed and getting up again.


OH used to get up and do a 6am feed so that I could have a bit of a lie in
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: devonlady on May 05, 2016, 10:28:43 pm
In my 50's I would have hated to have to get up but now, at 66 I wake every few hours in the night and read my book. I would as well be bottle feeding a lamb or five. Pity you don't all live nearer!
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: Herdygirl on May 05, 2016, 10:50:55 pm
I had never had a night feeding lambs til i was in my fifties  :-\ .  We did as Sbom did, but put a hot waterbottle in with them (and a big teddy  :innocent: )  worked fine.
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: Lesley Silvester on May 06, 2016, 12:33:21 am
I've only once bottle fed a kid and she was five weeks when I bought her so fine without the night feed, thank goodness. I just hope my girl who is currently in kid looks after her own so that I don't have to.
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: SallyintNorth on May 06, 2016, 12:54:08 am
I can't be doing with the middle-of-the-night getting up, dressed and going out to the byre any more, so I have a large dog cage in the sitting room.  They get their last feed immediately before I go to bed (and I've usually had a few hours in the chair before that ;)), and I can give them another as soon as I get up in the morning.  If they really need a small hours feed, I can do it in me jimjams and hardly wake up ;). 
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: Hellybee on May 06, 2016, 01:01:00 am
I must Baz has been amazing with middle of night feeds and checks, trooped through it.  I do last thing at night, hay, water, feeds.  He doesnt have to do 3 am now so he feeds again when he gets up first thing.


We had them in the house last year but we have a crazy puppy now and it just wouldn't work.  But we have lamps n leccy n dog cage at the ready if need be in my stables.
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: Rosemary on May 06, 2016, 09:12:19 am
Having them in the house isn't an option as they are with their mum.

However, in the early hours of thsi morning, at least I had the opportunity to check the election results while the bottle was warming  :)
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: mowhaugh on May 09, 2016, 07:28:55 pm
Human baby much easier - I sleep, she helps herself!
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: sabrina on May 09, 2016, 08:16:36 pm
I fed at 11pm and 5am.
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: shygirl on May 09, 2016, 08:31:16 pm
I fed at 11pm and 5am.
yep, same here.
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: Rosemary on May 09, 2016, 08:32:13 pm
I fed at 11pm and 5am.
yep, same here.

Too teeny for that yet. Soon though. Hopefully  :innocent:
Title: Re: 2am feeds
Post by: oor wullie on May 09, 2016, 09:07:46 pm
Was at the mart last week and watched an older gent buy 8 orphan lambs, he had a really mischievous grin in this face. 

The 2 women he was with had a look of total horror and their jaws hit the floor when the hammer fell.  I think they all knew who was going to be feeding them!