[dennd1906]

Hello everyone
I haven't been reading the forum for a couple of months and now I have I think I may have made a mistake with my orphan lamb.  My ewe lamb was orphaned at 3 weeks old and after a traumatic few days finally got her to take to the bottle.  She would only take a maximum of 1000ml a day, sometimes less but apart from the first few days, she has been in the field with the other sheep and has been eating grass.  Everywhere I read seemed to suggest weaning orphan lambs from 6 weeks old so I started reducing at 8 weeks to 750ml for 2 weeks and then started watering it down.  She is now 11 weeks old and still comes to me morning and night for what is now almost all water and some motherly attention.  I have offered her creep feed since small but she wont have it and I cant leave it in the field because the greedy grogs have it.  She looks healthy but have I cut off her nutrients to early? Have I made a mistake?

[sabrina]

I would say yes but maybe she has had the odd feed off a ewe who was too busy eating to know that i was not her lamb. Have seen this in the past.

[jaykay]

I feed mine for longer than this but don't know what is recommended.
As far as the creep goes, I get round this by taking one bar off a hurdle, making a square pen with this modified hurdle on its end, and put the creep inside. Only lambs can then get into the feed and the fatsos can't.

[ellisr]

I had a couple of orphans that were refusing milk at about 6-8 weeks, I still popped it in the nurser bucket but it was still there when I went to empty it in the evening. They were on grass and growing well so I didn't concern myself to much as they are little bruisers. you wouldn't know they were premature and very small now.

[SallyintNorth]

I would say you do want to get her eating creep - setting up a creep area is a good idea, hopefully the older lambs will start to eat the creep and she will copy them.  If no lambs are eating the creep you will need to feed all, including the ewes, for a few days or a week or so, the lambs will then copy their mums and start to eat it.  Once they know what it is they'll follow you to the creep area to get it.

If you only want to cake your orphan lamb, you will need to get her eating creep somehow.  Could you bar her into a pen somewhere overnight with some cake?  Once she knows about cake, you could cake her when she comes to you - replace the milk with cake as she gets the taste for it.

I would not recommend weaning by watering the milk down.  This will make their tummies feel full and they will be less likely to eat grass and cake, whereas you want them to feel hungry and eat more grass and cake as you are reducing the milk.  So another time, just reduce the amount of milk.  Generally I do not stop milk until the lamb is eating at least half-a-pound of cake each day.  Sometimes you need to reduce the milk to stimulate enough hunger to get them on eating cake, but I would not stop milk until they are eating cake at that level.

So yes, you have made a few mistakes - but don't beat yourself up.  She sounds healthy enough, and that's the main thing.  Feel her ribs and spine - if they are standing proud of the flesh then she needs more food.  If she has a reasonable covering and doesn't feel like a poster for Biafra then she's doing just fine.   

[shep53]

Every one has different ideas, i will say that under the circumstances you have done all you could ,welldone The weaning at 6 wks is designed for lambs indoors with creep and hay taking the place of grass in developing the rumen,your lamb is eating grass its natural feed to develop its rumen more slowly by 8-10 wks and while eating creep would help you cant make her eat it, if she is happy and healthy then youve done your best         Have to agree i would go for instant stop not watering down the milk just like its mam would have

[TheCaptain]

  Have to agree i would go for instant stop not watering down the milk just like its mam would have

but invest in some decent ear-defenders (muffs) or an Ipod to drown out the bleating - I stopped mine yesterday, good god the sounds if horrendous and it's as if they've had the throats slit!!!

[dennd1906]

Thank you all for your replies, they are really helpful and encouraging.

I have stopped the milk feed today and will persevere with the creep feed.  Ribwise she is fine, she eats grass all day with the others and is pooing pellets so I'm sure she is ok, but she is growing so she must need something extra.

There is so much conflicting information out there, its difficult to find the right thing to do.  Thank goodness for you all and your wealth of knowledge.  I will throw away the books and discard the websites, you are my new neighbours.

[Roxy]

It is hard to know what to do sometimes, and everyone has different ideas as you see.  With my goat kids, I always make sure they are taking hard feed before reducing their milk - to one bottle at teatime.  Like them to be 8-10 weeks before they make do wthout their bottle, and even then they are still wanting milk!!

[suziequeue]

.........but she is growing so she must need something extra.

OK - I'm not that experienced with sheep myself - we only started last year BUT.......

She's a sheep. She's in good nick. You've done a good job so far. She has evolved to survive on grass for many thousands of years before cake came along  As long as she's on good pasture...... they're pretty tough

Go easy on yourself. I feel the same sometimes. I would never forgive myself if I felt that one of my sheep had suffered through my lack of experience and bungling attempts at husbandry but....... feel the fear an do it anyway......... which you are already doing in spades.

We were very lucky this year and we had no problems with our lambs but our neighbours are very helpful and by god I've booked myself onto the next avaiable lambing course next year.