[Madcow]

we had triplets born early hours this morn, I wasnt there at the time, but born indoors, all were bright when I went up at 7, but 1 seemed to drop before my eyes, warmed her up inside my coat ,but she would not stand or suck so after 1/2 hour tried expressing milk from ewe, but I not very good and only got a few drops, put this in lambs mouth with my clean finger tip, after another few mins the lamb seemed to perk up, so we put her up to the ewes teat, she sucked a very little, and then stood on her own and gave a shake, so I thought good shes going to be ok.
But she only takes a few sucks and is getting pushed out by the other two and when I left at nearly ten she was looking all droppy again, should I try to keep expressing or holding her up or should I try to get some colostrum replacer ?
God I hate the first few hours,

[morri2]

I think if you have a bottle, try and milk some colostrum out of the ewe and bottle feed her with it to make sure she has some.  Mothers colostrum will be better than replacement which you can use if you can't get any out of the ewe.  Its a good idea to leave her with her mum, but you might need to supplement this one with a bottle for a while if she's the weakest of the three.  Keep us posted on progress and good luck. 

[jaykay]

I think you may have a pet lamb on your hands - it's hard for both the weakest triplet and the ewe to raise three. If you can express some colostrum from the ewe and bottle feed that, at least your littlest one will get the real thing, which makes such a difference.
I have left lambs with their mum and siblings 'for company' and bottle fed them - seems to work and at least they have someone to 'belong to' in the field.

Of course, what you really want is a willing ewe who has a single the day after - but how often does that happen!
I have a shearling scanned with three in and a two-shear with a single in due near each other...... we'll see!

[Madcow]

when I went back up to the barn, the little lamb was just snuggled down sleeping, but I wasnt having that so put her up to mothers teat, and she had lots of good strong sucks , stayed watching and although the other 2 are stronger she did get some more sucks on her own, and even did a skip,  so perhaps just my over worrying ! This ewe had triplets last year aswell and I top up bottled 2 of the smaller ones, so perhaps the same again this year, not that I'm bothered I just love it all, well when all works out

[andywalt]

The same thing happened to us with triplets, and what we did was the same as you, the first two days expressed colostrum from the mother and bottle fed it, then for another two days we just topped her up with 100ml of lamlac twice a day in a bottle  and then she was fine on her own, not easy tho as she didnt really take to the bottle so we had to be patient. keep up your good work.

[Madcow]

 thanks for the words of help so far, mother and triplets all seem a lot happier, they are all 3 sucking lots, so fingers crossed we are over the worst, will try with a top-up bottle for  them tomorrow, just to make sure they get enough each.  Dont you just love them, great big furry time wasters
3 more ewes to go, and 1 of the others looks like a barrel so poss more triplets, heaven help me
we only have 5 ewes, 2 tete rouge ( french breed) mature mums 9 & 10 years old !! and 3 younger suffolk X tete rouge 4 year olds, but boy do they take up all my time, just watching them and now their offspring, the dad just huffs and tries to find a quiet spot to escape the boisterous youngsters, who use him as a jumping board and nibble post, but hes a great dad and watches out for them when in the field.

[morri2]

Great to hear all is going well.  Its hard work but so rewarding.  Any piccies?

[jaykay]

That's really good news 

[andywalt]

good news thats great, id love to see a photo of a tete rouge !!