The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: dyedinthewool on March 25, 2013, 10:37:23 pm
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Hi.
My herdwick ewe lost her lamb at the weekend - a beautiful ewe lamb but soooo big - I did have to deliver it. Did everything I know (which isn't much) like massaging it, swinging it , mouth to mouth but to no-avail. I gave her Alamycin LA straight away. I got the vet out the next day as worried she had retained the placenta, he looked at the lamb and said it was big - wondered how I had managed to get it out on my own. Apparently it's happening a lot this year. Said I had done right with the jab. He gave her pen & strep plus two more for me to give on the following days, said if I could get a lamb onto her it would help. I couldn't get one until the next day - it was a few days old, a person down the road had one, a ram lamb taken from a yearling ewe with twins - she thought the ewe wouldn't cope with two lambs so took one away. she let me have it and my Herdy while a bit reluctant at first was taking to it quite well - Lady down the road then asked for it back as her ewe suddenly produced milk and was likely to get mastitis - I duly gave the lamb back. she gave me another one a ewe lamb this time a bit older possible 10days old. While my ewe isn't butting it she does push it away if it tries to feed and is a bit of a handful when I hold her for the little one to feed. Though once it's latched on she does 'give in' for a few minutes. At the moment I'm bottle feeding (worried she wasn't getting enough) and getting her to suckle from the ewe I've had the 2nd lamb since Monday.
Any tips on how at this late stage to get the ewe to accept a second baby or is it a case of too late or am I expecting too much too soon.
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Give her more time, usually the instinct to rear a lamb is so strong that a bereaved ewe will take pretty much anything.
It's a great shame that the neighbour took the first lamb back; perhaps a lesson to us all that it's worth buying lambs bought for fostering, then this can't happen. (Around here it's just a tenner. Mind, around here, no-one would ever dream of asking for a lamb back once given, no matter if it had been paid for or not.)
Anyhoo, you are where you are. Most likely, since she isn't trying to kill the lamb now, she will come around to it once it smells of her good and proper. Perhaps a few days, maybe as long as a week. If you possibly can hold the ewe long enough and often enough for the lamb to get all its milk from her (so it all smells of her and isn't mixed up with other milk smells), that will help. But obviously not to the point of letting the lamb starve.
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I'm not a proper farmer myself.... have a few weeks lambing helping out last few years.
We're in the middle of hell week at the moment. The best thing to try is to put harness on the ewe, and tie up. (or put in head restraint.) you may well have to show the lamb where it is, and check it feeding and havs full tummy.
we've done this with a few.... sometimes it works ometimes it doesn't
good luck
M