[lizzypeg]

my lamb is now nearly 6 weeks old.shes on 2 pints of lamlac twice a day from a bucket feeder.she drinks it all nearly at each feed.
shes out in grassy area in day and has creep and hayge in pen with her when shes in there.
shes not eating a lot of grass/hayge or creep yet.
will eat it if i hand feed it to her but not interested really at other times.more interested in exploring and playing.
shall i start cutting her milk down so she needs to start eating creep/grass.
what age do people wean if hand reared.
i put her in at night still as worried about foxes trying to get her as no mum to help protect her.
iv had lots of conflicting advoce from local farmers about the best age/how to wean her.
im happy to feed her milk as long as she needs it as shes going to be staying so the cost isnt an issue.

[The Irish Shepherd]

Hi Lizzy,

Put some creep in a very shallow bucket/tub what ever you have, I use cut up car tyres!! Turn her out in the morning without a bottle feed, only feed her in the evening, and reduce it to a pint over a week.

I have all mine off milk at 4 weeks old by doing it that way. Especially if you can turn her out where there is a pick of grass.

[SallyintNorth]

Yes, at 6 weeks you should be able to encourage her to eat creep and hay.

Don't leave a great pile of either out, offer instead small amounts of fresh creep and hay an hour or so after her milk feed(s).  Discard what's uneaten (give it to any older sheep  ) and replace with fresh two or three times during the day, until she starts eating it up.

Some lambs seem to prefer to eat straw to hay - barley straw is particularly irresistable.

Make sure she has fresh clean water available at all times too - 'fresh clean' means changing that at least once a day, too.

[sh3ph3rd]

Making her get her own breakfast is generally good. I cut Lucy's feed down by a few scoops per week for a few weeks until she was only having 400mls per day, then started only giving her 200 mls at night for another week, then nothing. That was down from a peak of five feeds per day, total of 1.4 litres per day. I could only get PalaStart Lamb and Kid Milk Replacer, not ProviLac Shepherd like I was after, but it did good. How much you're feeding your lamb would depend on breed, history, environment, and formula, and I know next to nothing about your particular circumstances. But it's good to play it by ear in general.

I weaned my lamb late because of the damage of her early days, but generally Damaras are eating grass in their first week and grazing strongly by the second; I could have probably weaned her a lot sooner. My Merinos took a lot longer than that, but I weaned them late too because they were also damaged orphans.

[twizzel]

Yes ours are off milk by 6 weeks and eating a lot of creep. Cut it down to 1 pint a day over 2 feeds, and after a 5-7 days cut out the morning feed, then cut out all together. You need to cut the milk out a. to make them hungry and b. because too much milk and creep together can cause bloat and kill them.