[Fud]

I've three orphaned lambs, out of a Blue Faced Leicester/Swaledale mule, that are now four weeks old. I've been feeding them 1 and a bit bottles of milk, three times a day and wondered when I should start decreasing the amount that I give them. They have started eating lamb creep but still want more and more milk. They seem to be doing well and putting on weight.

Any suggestions?

[harmony]

Hi


Feeding instructions should be on the milk bag.

[Keelan H]

After 4 weeks mine were on 3 bottles of about 300ml a time, once they hit 5 weeks i went to two feeds of 400ml. I was always told to give them a little less than what the bag says as 'a slightly underfed lamb doesn't get bloat'.
Hope this helps

[Fud]

Hi and thanks for your replies.
I've been feeding them on blue top milk so instructions are a bit scarce but it has certainly been successful and cheaper than the powdered stuff, Any one else used blue top milk?

[suziequeue]

What's blue top milk?

[Hellybee]

Normal milk I think. 

[SallyintNorth]

In my experience, lambs do not thrive on pasteurised, homogenised cows milk.  As in,  they die.

I have reared lambs on raw Jersey milk (so gold top - but not pasteurised and not homogenised) straight from the cow, but they need a lot more of it than the powdered stuff, so much so that when very young I've had to feed two extra feeds a day as their stomachs aren't large enough to take the quantity they need in 3 or 4 feeds. 

You could certainly do it on an ad lib system, but definitely not homogenised.  I'm not sure about pasteurisation; personally I'd want it a as natural as possible,

There are also plenty of people who rear lambs on goats milk.  But again, straight from the goat,  not processed.

[Hellybee]

Lamlac all the way here 

[Fud]

Blue top milk  full fat from the supermarket, they seem to be doing very well on it.

[Backinwellies]

A quick google on this and yes SiN is correct  lambs need much higher fat content than normal cows milk ...  one vet suggested adding full fat milk powder to cows milk  (70g per litre) to make it similar to ewe's milk.