[Remy]

I was kept awake most of the night by baaing and got up this morning to a Gotland with twins, these ewes are in a group of six together.  I then noticed another baby near her and thought, oh she's had triplets!  I went into the stable and saw another baby, and started to think, quads???      as all the babies were round one ewe.


But thought another ewe must have lambed so looked around and sure enough one of my most friendly ewes had a messy bum. However she didn't seem interested in any of the babies, whereas the other ewe was!  I deduced that two of the lambs with white head markings must have come from her as she also has white markings, but she would only accept one of them and violently butted the other one away, who went back to the ewe who let it suckle.  The friendly ewe seems to have become very flighty and nervous and wouldn't let me near her, so I decided to put her in a stable with her two lambs away from the others.  I left them alone for a while but when I looked later she was still rejecting one lamb and being quite violent with it, and this lamb also didn't seem to want to go near her.


I had to go out so put the little lamb back in with the other ewe, who immediately licked it and let it suckle.  It seems for some reason the ewe, a first timer, has accepted one lamb but not the other and the other ewe who has lambed before is very maternal and welcomed this little lamb into her brood.


Im not sure what to do now as the lamb will have drunk from the other ewe making it even more likely to be rejected  .  I gave the single lamb some powdered colostrum as I haven't seen it suckle yet and will check tomorrow.  I don't want the other ewe to be burdened with three although she's happy to feed them all, so it looks like I will have to be assisting with the milk.


Is it common for ewes to become nervous after birthing?  If anything my others have become more mellow!

[firther]

hi remy

it sounds like the older ewe prob had triplets to me, I wouldn't go on the markings as they can vary.
 you 2 choices, check the ewe for milk and she if she as enough for 3 with maybe a little help with the bottle.

or you could put the sheiling on a chain, just enough room to feed and drink. we done this numerous times and in the end she will accept the lamb.

1st time lambers can be flighty, had 1 in the early hours. she wouldn't stop licking the lamb and moving away from it when the lamb were trying to feed.
had to hold the lamb under and let her keep having a sniff, got there in the end and a happy aheep a lamb now.
 
hope this helps 

[Marches Farmer]

First timers sometimes seem a bit nonplussed by the lamb, especially if it's flailing around trying to stand for the first few minutes.  It can help if you give the ewe a bit of feed to take her mind off things.

[MrsJ]

Out of my 9 that have lambed so far, I have 6 sets of triplets, 2 twins and one single.  All triplet mums are coping well with three lambs each.

[shep53]

Welcome to my world   here is the way i see it, the gimmer started to lamb a pair of twins , then the ewe got excited by the smells as she was preparing to lamb , the gimmer lambed her first and tried to lick it but the ewe was stronger and kept  pushing the gimmer away, the gimmer then moved off to have her second lamb but still called on her first born, the ewe then started lambing keeping the gimmers lamb close,  the gimmer dropped her second lamb licked it but kept running  back and forwards to try to get back her first lamb thus not really bonding with her second, the ewe then dropped twins quickly and licked all three lambs thus confusing the gimmers lamb smell. This is why a lot of baaing went on and why the ewe wants three and the poor gimm is confused and upset, given time and penned with the one lamb she should be ok and should calm down.   Quite often i  have to leave ewes with lambs that are not their own if they have bonded