[clydesdaleclopper]

Finally my girl who is down with the ligament problem kidded last night at 1am (matchsticks propping open eyes emoticon needed here)


One of the kids is suckling from her as she is lying down but the other one is a nightmare. he won't suckle and won't take a bottle. We have got some milk into him but I was wondering if anyone had any advice. I can't leave them with her all of the time as when she half gets up to shuffle herself around there is a big risk of her crushing them. I have put a hurdle across the corner of her area and I am putting the kids in there so that she can still see them okay and be next to them and then I let them in with her under supervision but that is obviously hugely time consuming. Any ideas?

[Anke]

Firstly, WELL DONE - two live kids!

If you are planning to keep the boy, bottling him (and probably the other one too) would be the best solution. In the worst case scenario (the dam doesn't get back up again) you will have the kids already used to be fed by you - getting older kids onto the bottle is much more difficult. You may have to be quite pragmatic here re the chances of mum getting better.

For the one that doesn't take the bottle - tube-feed (like lambs) with colostrum as much as possible, once he is past that you can let him get quite hungry, and I would take them out of the dam's earshot, completely. I have found it easier this year to just offer 4 feeds, I used to do 5 in the first few weeks, but found they went for fuller bottles more quickly if I stuck too 4 feeds - 7am, 12noon, 5pm and 10pm.

Can you get enough milk out of the dam for both kids?

  you can get the kids sorted, after al this hard work!

[clydesdaleclopper]

Thanks Anke, that is really useful. Do you take them out of earshot for the whole time or just when trying to bottle feed them?


The wee boy that is suckling is happy to take a bottle also so I am more relaxed about him but the other one fights when you try to get him to either suckle from mum or take a bottle. I am going to tube him some powdered colostrum as mum has had to be milked so often in the past few weeks when she was dripping milk everywhere that I'm not sure that it is colostrum that she is producing at the moment.

[Anke]

If her milk is quite thick and has a yellow tinge to it  - it is colostrum. Was any of the stuff you milked out from her before and froze colostrum?

If you can I would take out the kids completely, if not a hurdle will protect them from being squashed, as long as they cannot crawl/squeeze through...However being near to mum might make bottle training a bit harder, as they can smell her udder and the milk, so want to go there.

[ballingall]

We always try to not tube feed if possible. You don't want to tube them too much in case they lose the sucking reflex. Keep trying the kid with the teat, active swallowing is good- ie shoggling the milk into their mouth until they swallow. Of course they don't always, so if they don't you may need to tube.




Beth

[Lesley Silvester]

Make sure you hold the bottle in such a position that he has to point his nose up. This is how they feed from mum and he may find it easier.