Author Topic: weaning botle fed lambs (Read 5159 times)

emmaghil · « **on:** May 26, 2013, 08:30:27 am »

i have 4 lambs, 2 bottle fed from birth 5 and 6 weeks ago, and 2 were orphans, they are around 4 weeks old and have been bottle fed for a 2 weeks now.

they are being fed completely on milk, I have lamb nuts in the pen with them but only a coule are touching them and that its just a nibble. If they are in the field for any length of time at least one lamb is ending up needing treated for bloat.

they are on 3 milk feeds a day.

any advice how to try and wean more effectively? thanks

Alicenz · « **Reply #1 on:** May 26, 2013, 10:44:22 am »

There have been lots of discussions about bloat in lambs recently, try searching it or even scrolling through the first three or so pages of this forum. I think bloat in lambs often occurrs when they are moving from milk to grass. Try giving less milk if any are bloated as long as they are getting enough grass, try cooler milk but dont vary the temperature between feeds of the milk as that can cause problems. Once you start giving it cooler keep it that way. Main thing is not to over feed with the milk as bloat can kill. Possibly think (talk with others hopefully on the forum) about dropping the mid day feed for the older lambs, or I think i even used to drop the evening feed if they were bloated as I did not want to bloat them more. Good luck.

EP90 · « **Reply #2 on:** May 26, 2013, 03:35:20 pm »

I had a very similar problem with grass causing bloat to a lamb, I don’t think his Rumen was fully developed for coping with milk and unlimited grass while his mate wolfed everything without a glitch. Now weaned and happy on grass. This might help
http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=33755.msg337176#msg337176

emmaghil · « **Reply #3 on:** May 26, 2013, 05:38:58 pm »

Thank you for that, will have a good look at other threads. That's interesting, I thought the bloat was primarily caused by the grass, not the milk, but its the combination, and cutting the milk down is what will help? Thank you very much!

twizzel · « **Reply #4 on:** May 26, 2013, 08:47:34 pm »

At 6 weeks old they should really be weaned off milk and eating 1/2 lb of creep per day. I would cut out 1 of the feeds and as they get hungry they will start to nibble the creep more. Cut out another feed in 5-7 days time then another 5-7 days after that wean them, or earlier if they are eating enough creep. The creep has milk powder in and expands when wet which is what causes them to bloat, feed cold milk from now until weaning and get them off milk asap.

zarzar · « **Reply #5 on:** May 26, 2013, 11:18:04 pm »

Hi there we got our first orphan lambs this year to they are now6-7 weeks, we found they seemed to bloat with grass and milk but when they got to 4 weeks we put them over on to an adlib blue bucket with cold milk and we havent had any bloat since, we have gradually cut amount of milk down and our now fully on hard feed and grass.

sokel · « **Reply #6 on:** May 27, 2013, 07:20:17 am »

We cut the bottles out completely when they went out onto grass 24/7 and not had any problems . they are now on Grass and creep although over the last couple of days they are not taking as much creep as they where doing so will have to keep an eye on them

SallyintNorth · « **Reply #7 on:** May 27, 2013, 08:12:45 pm »

If you can first of all introduce them to grass where there isn't so much of it, and it's not particularly good stuff, it will help a lot. Give them a few days to a week on poor pickings, along with milk and creep, while their systems get used to processing grass but can't overdo it, then, provided they are old enough and are eating at least 1/2lb creep per head per day, you can move them onto good grass and drop the milk.

We have an old chicken run we use for this purpose - the grass is a bit rank, and there isn't really enough for more than a couple of lambs, so we run them in there in batches of 4-7 for a few days and then promote them to the meadows once they have adjusted to including green stuff in their diets.

Just remember, though, that they'll need more creep when the milk stops, or you're forcing them to make up the difference with grass - and that can cause bloat. Most lambs on ewes won't be weaned until 4 months old; we typically wean our pet lambs at 6-8 weeks, so they need something to replace the milk their non-orphaned peers are getting.