The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Gemma on May 12, 2016, 12:35:55 pm
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Had a ewe (let's call her 1) (mule shearling 3rd year she's lambed) lamb a good week ago now in the early hours. She got brought indoors with her large lamb roughly 5.30am. Was riding horse at around 9.30am and found a newborn lamb asleep in a different field (not the lambing field) with a ewe that aborted 2 weeks previously so it obviously wasn't hers. On closer inspection it had to be ewe 1's as she was the only one that had lambed recently. Because I thought she had had a single I had tried to adopt a triplet onto her. I then took it off her and gave her lamb 1 (the mystery lamb) she accepted the smell and bleated at it. However had her tied up for a week now (tried her indoors, outdoors and tied up /loose) but she will not let lamb 1 drink from her and she head butts it. Yet she bleats at it and accepts it's smell. She mothers her lamb 2 (the one that had been with her all along) very well though. Anyone got any advice? Will she let It drink from her eventually? I am regularly holding her for lamb 1 to drink at the moment
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Im sure some more experienced sheepy people will be along soon but I fostered twins onto a ewe who lost her twins this time and it took about a week of them being penned up together and holding the ewe for the lambs to feed until I was confident enough to turn them out. I penned off a corner of the ewes pen so the lambs could get into the corner away from ewe in case she was too rough with them. Good luck! :fc:
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Take the lamb off and bottle feed , when a ewe rejects one of her own twins because it wandered away at birth it is very very difficult to get her to accept it , far easier to put two new lambs onto a ewe
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There's a farmer near me who cuts the bottom out of a bucket and puts it over the ewes head. She is then blinkered and can't see which lamb is feeding. Seems to do the trick although I'm sure that there is more to it than that.
William
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I posted here a while ago about a ewe who wouldn't accept her own single, despite being penned up together for over a week. I'm afraid that I gave up and landed up bottle feeding him but he lives with the other lambs and ewes. I had read lots of good advice here about getting the ewe to accept her offspring and the deciding factor for me was that I ran out of good hay to feed to the penned ewe. I am feeding 4 times a day and worry less now that I know he is drinking over a litre a day. Little does his Mum know that she has signed her own death warrant as I won't risk breeding from her again!
Helen
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Personally I'd probably persevere if you can, I've only once or twice had it take longer than a week. If it's no better at 10 days, though, you may have to give up.
The Elizabethan collar idea sounds interesting, william_wt!
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Little does his Mum know that she has signed her own death warrant as I won't risk breeding from her again!
In my experience this does work. We've culled out poor mothering over the years and haven't had to use an adopter for some years.
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I would keep at it for a while longer. I had a set of twins this year who'd lost their mother and two ewes who'd lost lambs. It took nearly 2 weeks for the Shetland ewe to accept one twin, where as the mule hog took less than a week. Each ewe to their own, but she might still take it if you give her a bit longer. :fc:
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How long you persevere is up to you and how much patience you have and how inconvenient having a pet lamb will be! She either will or won't accept it and you may know in one week or several! This year we had a shearing who hated her lamb and butted it away - but the lamb is a very strong character and kept trying (also squeezed out of the pen to suckle any other ewe in the barn!) At 4 weeks, ewe was bound to go off with the culls and the lamb to be a pet, when we noticed a softening of the ewe's resolve and, long story short - at 2 months they are fine and lamb growing well.