[Whittsend]

  I apologise for this long post but I I am worried about what I need to do next.  Yesterday afternoon my neighbour asked if I would take in a ram  lamb( Welsh Mountain) he had found wandering on it's own.  He is a single man who lambs all his ewes outside and tends to let "nature take its course" when it comes to lambing. I have a few Coloured Ryeland ewes ( for their wool / pets) so he knew I had some knowledge of sheep.  I assumed the lamb was quite young but it's umbilical cord was dry and it had passed meconium onto it's tail  so I reasoned that it had had some colostrum from its mum.  I had a sachet of colostrum ( 80ml  when made up), and a bottle, so I gave him that immediately and went to buy a tub of lamlac. He was clearly very hungry and drank 5oz  quickly. Since then I have struggled to get him to take more than 2oz at a time. I sat up most of the night with him trying to feed him every three hours but it was very hard going to get him to take much. Between 3:30pm yesterday and 10:30am today he has had only about 500ml in total. He is alert, quite active  weeing plenty and passing a few small droppings. An artical I read on another smallholding group says that they don't pass little round dropping until they are about ten days old. If he really is that old I would have thought he should be drinking about a litre and a half a day . Any advice would be appreciated.

[shygirl]

weeing plenty is very important so that's a good sign.
I cant remember volume wise how much they need but stomach tubing could be an option - its not difficult if you are careful.
bottlefed babies have firmer poo than mum-fed in most species.
goodluck

[Me]

If he's taking something he will be fine I am sure you will get there

[Whittsend]

Thank you for your replies Shygirl and Me. It's amazing how comforting it is to share worries on this forum and how a few words of encouragement can make such a difference to how you feel.  My children are in their thirties, and yet, struggling to  try to help this little fellow last night  brought back vivid memories of sleepless nights with poorly babies.  The weather here in North Wales is wet and wild today so at least I know that, hopefully,  this lamb has a better chance of making it through than he would if he had been left out in the field.
I will keep offering him frequent feeds and maybe resort to stomach tubing ( sound very scary) if he starts to decline. x

[shygirl]

theres a lot of good info on the net about stomach tubing technique. the tubes themselves you get from the farmstore for about a quid or so.

[ZaktheLad]

Have you access to any Col-late lamb kick-start?  It's a wonderful thing for lambs.  I give it to all of my new born lambs and believe it makes a real difference.  Just one pump of the liquid will be all that's required.  It is also very effective for the older lamb and if I ever have one that looks like it needs a boost they get a pump of this and it seems to do the trick and they never look back. 

[SallyintNorth]

Umm... I think a Welsh Mountain is likely to need considerably less feed than a Ryeland - so if he's taking more than 500ml in 24 hours, I wouldn't be too worried.

My waifs get 6 feeds for the first day or two, then they're onto 4.  Three hourly is unnecessary, in my view. 

If you let him get hungry, he'll drink alright!    That's not as heartless as it sounds - truly, feeding too often makes them only want to take a little at a time (which is the natural way, they'd take little and often off mum if left to their own devices), so as he's to be bottle-reared I'd be getting him used to fewer slightly larger feeds straight away - as soon as you have him recovered from any ordeal he's been through.  (And yes, something like Co-late or Kick Start is a real boon in those circs.)

Make sure he has good clean fresh hay available, and clean fresh water to drink, so he can nibble and sip on between feeds.  It's very important they get long-stemmed forage in the first seven days for rumen development.

The other thing that could be going on, if you really think he isn't taking enough milk to keep him going, is that his system was overloaded by that first 5oz feed and now he's feeling bloated and that he doesn't really like that bottled milk stuff.  If you think there could be an element of that, get some Pfizer Scour Formula, or Rehydion (they're both for calves but perfectly good for lambs) and put him on that for 24 or even 48 hours.  That'll give him vitamins and electrolytes and let his abused digestion recover!  Then back onto milk - with Rehydion you can mix it with milk so can reintroduce milk slowly, with PFS I'm not sure mixing is a good idea, so you could replace every third feed with a small milk feed on the second day, then hopefully he'd be okay with all milk by the third.

[Fleecewife]

As Sally says, especially the bit about the initial 500 mls being too much in one go, especially as he had probably had nothing since he got lost.  I'm sure he'll be fine in a couple of days, and great fun to rear.  Will you be castrating him once he's over this trauma, so your ewes aren't at risk of unwanted cross-bred lambs?  Worth thinking about as you don't have long to do it (or has he got a ring on already?)

[Whittsend]

Yep, I think overloading a tiny, very empty digestive system has been the problem.   This afternoon and evening I have made him go longer between feeds and he is much more keen, tail wagging happily as he feeds. Hopefully I wont need any of the products recommended but I have written it all down just in case, or for next time. Fleecewife, I was wondering about castration.  How do I go about it and how soon does it need to be done? I don't think any of the farmers around me do anything other than tail docking (and not many do that ].

[devonlad]

for castration and tails) we use a rubber band with its own device called an elastrator. we tend to do it at about 3 days old to allow the lamb ewe bond to form uninterrupted and ensure the lamb is feeding well. i'm pretty sure the law states that any castration without anaesthetic must be done in first week of life- the older they get the more painful it is. banding our lambs is my least favourite job of the year, tricky to ensure both tiny little items are below the band/ its easy to do it wrongly and remove the purse but leave one or both coins behind in the belly cavity. also awful to watch as the poor liitle chap contorts into a myriad of positions until numbness sets in. we would prefer not to do it and last year we didnt- but it presents problems later on when you've got limited space and its tricky to keep them away from the females. tomorrow we've got 3 new arrivals to do- not looking forward to it.i'm sure others will put their own slant on it but if theres a chance he's older than a week then it might be best to chat to a vet about an anaesthetised way of doing it

[Fleecewife]

If you've never applied a ring before then get someone to do it for you.  If your neighbours don't castrate then probably a quick trip to your vet with lambie under your arm would be best.  There's quite a knack to applying the band and if you faff about then the bits disappear into the abdomen and you have to try again later.
I think from what you describe with the meconium on his tail that we can assume he's just a few days old, so the elastrator will be fine.
We usually find that it's only the occasional lamb who finds it uncomfortable if the band has been correctly applied, mostly they just sit down for a bit then get up and trot off after the ewe.
Recently, we only castrate lambs with an obvious problem which would debar then from breeding - this way we can see our tups as shearlings and sort them then into either the meat line or the possible breeding tup line.  You won't want your little lad to be mating with your Ryelands, so best to get him done.  That way you will also be able to keep him as a pet if you want, because I think you're going to become quite fond of the wee chap.
I'm so glad he's perked up - a lamb that doesn't want to feed is SO frustrating 

[Whittsend]

A phone call to the vets for an appointment is next on my list. I'am pretty good at practical stuff with my animals but I would hate to get it wrong and cause more discomfort than is absolutely necessary.  I know that this ram lamb's mum will not have been vaccinated.I vaccinate my three Ryelands each September and, because I can only get vaccine that will do 25 sheep ,I give the remainder to my neighbour on the day I do mine. I think he uses it on his show rams but doesnt vaccinate his ewes ( about 150 of them in total). When should I start the vaccination programme with this little fellow? Does he need it before I let him out on grass? I know I can ask the vet but I value the opinion of the people on this forum.  I feel responsible for this little chap now and want to get it right.
I have also just realised that I will have to get him  ear tagged. Because my ewes came already tagged, and I had no intention of breeding from them, I have not ordered any tags with my details on. I am assuming I give it my details or does my neighbour  have tag it and then transfer ownership to me, with relevant movement license?  His land surrounds us on all sides so hardly a stones throw in distance but I know  that Animal Health are very tight about correct procedure- with good reason. Thanks, yet again, for everyones' generosiity in answering  my questions.x

[shygirl]

get the vet to show you how to ring the lamb so you know for next time, rather than just do it for you. my vet showed me.

[devonlad]

technically as hes left he holding of birth i'm pretty sure he'll need two tags from your neighbour.. as ours are born here we don't tag them until the day before slaughter- or 9 months- whichever comes sooner and then they go on just a batch tag (before 12 months old).
our ewe lambs we don't tag at all as so far they've stayed here. they are each allocated a number and a tag so that if we do sell them on, or animal health come a calling we can put them in. the first year we dutifully tagged everything and ended up with torn ears and lost tags so we try not to do it unless we have to .dont think theres a choice with your little chap

[Foobar]

Get your neighbour to provide tags for the wee chap. Then fill in the appropriate movement form, just to cover yourself.
Sounds like this lamb has landed himself a fine new home , keep up the good work!


Re: vaccination, if he's had no protection from Mum then I would be tempted to do it at 3 weeks. However, if that doesn't fit in with your own programme then their is no point buying a whole bottle of vaccine just for one lamb.  Whilst you are at the vets maybe ask if they know anyone else local to you who might be able to spare you some at the right time. Alternatively, don't bother, if your neighbour doesn't bother the you might be able to get away with it.  It might be worth asking your neighbour if he does the lambs with Ovivac though, and if he does, get a jab of that from him.