[Mrs Mccoy]

We’ve had a right old struggle with this years bottles that we just can’t get on top of. Never had it before. They’re all at varying degrees of pot bellied ness. They’re now about 12 weeks old and we stopped the milk at about 9 weeks replacing with creep and grass. We are down there massaging them several times daily but still the are pot bellied. Is there anything we can give them to resolve it ?

[twizzel]

Bottle lambs normally get pot bellied, it’s part and parcel of them drinking more milk over 3 or 4 feeds rather than little and often on the ewe. But it might be worth getting your vet to do a faecal egg count just to rule out cocci or worms.

[SallyintNorth]

Lots of bottle reared lambs - and calves - get pot-bellied, yes.  But the OP says hers haven't before, and for the most part, mine didn't. 

I have often thought it a consequence of over-feeding, which can be as a result of reducing number of feeds too quickly so that each feed is larger, or feeding by numbers instead of by looking at the animal, or thinking it kind to let it have a bit more than it really needs.

The year I did have lambs pot-bellied, I'd had someone helping with feeding them, who wouldn't have had the experience to know when a lamb has had enough and needs to be taken off the bottle.  And the one pot-bellied hand-reared calf I've had was fed by others, who always gave it more than I said it should have. 

[Mrs Mccoy]

That does seem to have created the problem Sally. We were away for a week in early June ( unavoidable but not ideal) and we know that our lamb sitters didn’t feed in the way we do. The lambs have been pot bellied ever since, we suspect due to their milk not being given carefully and with breaks. Will they ever recover or just remain runty and pot bellied ?

[SallyintNorth]

We always got most of ours away eventually, but the pot bellied ones do take longer to fitten.  Hopefully you weren't hoping that these would be breeders?