The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: SuffolkK on February 28, 2017, 11:31:00 am
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Slept though alarm at 3am, arrived in barn at 6am, 2 ewes had lambed. At first glance I thought fab a double and a single. On getting into pen, I then find one dead lamb (very small), 1 that had got itself trapped in a hurdle but standing up and the other 3 not sure which their mothers were. SO then the dilemma to try and sort. Think I have it sorted - 1 ewe has 3 lambs and the other has the single. I have given the smaller lambs colostrum but should I have tried to foster one of the triplets onto the ewe with the single. She already tried to kill the one that wasn't hers and really threw it up in the air. One thing for sure, I am setting even more alarm clocks tonight!!! :-\
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You could have tried fostering if you have the means to do it. Are your triplets even sized? I have had a suffulk rear three lambs and they all grew equally.
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I did think about fostering but its not really practical for me. All the lambs are of equal size and I am happy to keep 'topping them up' if required
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I didn't need to top mine up with milk but I did give them access to creep feed as they grew on.
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I would have done the same as you and kept the 3 with their mother and topped up. It's a lot easier to spend a few weeks topping up a willing lamb (maybe just once day) with milk than trying to force a murderous ewe, several times a day, to feed it.
You can of course wait till they are on concentrates before you give them any extra, and I've done that with later lambs when there is plenty of clean spring grass. But unless you're incredibly lucky a ewe cannot adequately feed 3 lambs.
These are early lambs and if grown to optimum potential should fetch a premium price. But unless you top them up with milk you will lose the most efficient growth phase of the first few weeks and end up with mediocre lambs that have missed the early market.