The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: tony_b on May 16, 2018, 10:28:10 am
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Hi All, some advice if possible please. We had a lamb who had a difficult first 12 hours: left for dead whilst mum cared for the twin and got hypothermia. 3 or 4 hours under a lamp and a tube feed got her through the night. Our problem now is she just won't feed by any method (trying to latch her on mum standing, tipping mum, bottle feed). She just seems to have no suckle reflex or any desire to feed. To stop her declining we have resorted to tubing again. She seems like a lamb in slow motion, follows mum half heartedly, stares out in to space. So, unless we can get her to feed she's not even going to make a pet lamb. Any thoughts please. We can only think to starve her for a while to see if she will make the effort to suck? Thankyou
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Keep trying with the bottle first then tube if nothing happens . I would let her get a bit stronger before you resort to using hunger to make her suck . I have twins 3 days old both suckling mum but she stopped eating yesterday so last night one lamb sucked half a bottle straight off and his bigger brother refused so had to tube, LAMBS ??? Just keep going :thumbsup:
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Keep trying the bottle, but without making the lamb fight you. Cuddle him and talk to him, sometimes a bit of fuss makes them start nibbling and then you can introduce the teat into the questing mouth ;). But yes, tube enough to keep him alive while he's so very young.
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Did the lamb get any colostrum within the first 6 hours of life ? If not then it doesn’t have much of a chance :gloomy:
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The bit about "stares into space" would worry me. Lambs like that don't seem to do. All you can do is try.
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I would put him on my knee facing away from me and place the teat in his mouth and gently squeeze the bottle so a bit of the milk flows into his mouth, then when his mouth is full he should swallow. It takes ages but by I've kept quite a few lambs alive by doing it. Usually after a couple of days they start to suck
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One of our triplets was born incredibly weak and as she was the only ewe we tried everything including tubing her for 48 hours to keep her alive but had the same issue, she just wouldn’t or couldn’t feed. Our vet over the phone called the staring into space ‘stargazing’ and told us it indicated that she was in pain. Once I heard that we had her put down.
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Firstly, my apologies for not interacting or thanking those for their replies. IT problems and lost user name issues!!
Update, after 3-4 days we finally got her feeding, she is now fit and well, running with the others. She's on reduced bottle rations and will be off the milk soon. Thankyou for your support and advice