[NewLifeOnTheFarm]

My neighbour just rocked up with a 48hr orphan lamb. They are away tonight and I suspect had I not taken it, nature would have been allowed to take course. Main question is, can I feed full fat cow's milk? I have colostrum, but no powder. And can't get out to agri merchant today.

Thanks.

[twizzel]

Not if it’s been pasteurised I.e shop bought. And not really if it’s cow milk replacer for calves as it has half the fat that lamb milk replacer has.


I’d give it colostrum and get some milk powder first thing in the morning.

[SallyintNorth]

Unless you are planning to keep it on cows’ milk - and yes it must be raw - then I wouldn’t.  I’ve reared lambs on raw Jersey milk but they don’t switch back to ewes milk easily.

If you can afford colostrum I’d keep it going with small feeds of that. 

Otherwise, do you have PSF or Rehydion?  It would be fine on either overnight and that would be cheaper than colostrum

Otherwise do you have a local dairy farmer you could get raw milk from?  Or even better a goat keeper locally? 

[landroverroy]

Why should pasteurised cows milk not be fed to lambs? I'm sure I've given it to my lambs temporarily when I've run out of milk powder. I've also fed tinned evaporated milk, suitably diluted, with no ill effects.

[SallyintNorth]

Straight pasteurised may be okay I guess, but homogenised certainly isn’t.  The majority of milk these days is both.

[NewLifeOnTheFarm]

Picking up some goats milk this afternoon. Been taking colostrum well from bottle. Still very weak and has made no effort to stand since arriving. Peeing and pooping. Breathing fine. So we will see.

[Goatherd]

  Why not Homogenised   Homogenised is a mechanical not chemical distribute of fat globules
    to help digest the milk   Or stop the customer seeing you have taken all the cream

[Penninehillbilly]

Picking up some goats milk this afternoon. Been taking colostrum well from bottle. Still very weak and has made no effort to stand since arriving. Peeing and pooping. Breathing fine. So we will see.

Mine did well on goats milk, or if I don't have enough, I make up with lamlac, never had a problem with scouring. 

[SallyintNorth]

  Why not Homogenised   Homogenised is a mechanical not chemical distribute of fat globules
    to help digest the milk   Or stop the customer seeing you have taken all the cream

The fat globules are made smaller by homogenisation.  Far from helping to make it digestible, some people think it makes it so ‘digestible’ that some of the globules pass right through a human slightly leaky gut, exacerbating conditions like Crohns, IBS, and what may appear to be cows’ milk allergy.

Personally I now avoid homogenised milk, seeking out proper ‘gold top’ type milk when our own cows are dry.  And I’ve twice seen lambs die when fed shop-bought milk.  Of course it could have been other factors, but we tried it twice and twice the lambs died.