The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: cambee on April 04, 2018, 06:53:02 am
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Has anyone else had this issue? Our 3 3-4 week old Suffolk mule cross cades are on 3 500ml bottles per day plus picking at hay and creep and thriving (way bigger and heavier than our mum fed Ryelands). We have them on the bottle rack system with nettex bottles and teats and the teats are now cut so that the milk flows quickly. The last couple of days one of the girls is so forceful and quick and I don’t know how she’s doing it but she keeps head butting out the teat with the consequence that the milk just pours out and I have to go off and make another bottle. I always ensure that the teat is correctly positioned and the lid screwed on as tight as possible. It’s extremely frustrating. She’s always first on the bottles and once she’s butted out her teat she pushes one of the others out the way or tries to. Has anyone else had this problem?
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Can you get calf teats to fit your system? They're generally much more robust than lamb teats.
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Yep, all quite normal, there is always one that does that....my goat kids do it as well, they usually suck the teat out and then stand around with the empty teat in their mouth sucking furiously on air - incredibly funny! I have to say, tough, no extra bottle here. By that time they are on concentrate rations anyway, and I then usually reduce the feeds down to two per day.