[Greenmoor]

Went to check the sheep earlier and found two that had lambed close together, one with triplets and one with a single.  I brought them in and penned them up and it became clear that they are actually two sets of twins, one that has been mis-mothered.  The one with three is content with them all at the moment and the one left with one refuses to have her other lamb back.  What does everyone recommend?  We do have an adoption panel, but after an unfortunate incident last week where the mother stood on and killed the adopted lamb I'm reluctant to use it again.

Thanks

Gemma x

[shep53]

 If you leave the trips on the ewe she may not cope and in time may cause problems, poor lambs /mastitis , she could even reject the odd lamb in the days to come   ,depends on size of lambs , not to big and of even size ,ewe big udder then all may be well . Personally I would  make the ewe accept a second lamb she may prefer one lamb more than the other two

[SallyintNorth]

I agree with shep53.

However it's a tough call to make a ewe accept a second lamb once her own lamb is a few hours old; frankly the adopter is probably the only way to do it.  Otherwise you will have to hold the ewe for the lamb to suck several times a day, probably for a week or more - and it may not work then.  It's a tricky situation.

[waterbuffalofarmer]

It sounds like a hand rearing case I'm afraid. 

[DartmoorLiz]

I had a similar problem.  I didn't have an adoption pannel but I tried to reunite mother to her stollen lamb by putting them both (still wet) into a cut off dustbin so she could look in but not show favouritism and they would mingle their scent - that didn't work, they jumped out.  I then tried haltering her so she couldn't butt lamb away - that worked but was unsustainable for her sake.  I then put in a creep area for rejected lamb to escape into - he was game for a go and would sneak out for a drink but it was quite clear she wouldn't change her mind so I gave up and let her out with her accepted lamb and started bottle feeding reject (who is now called scardy cat as he is so nervous as a result of being beaten up by his mum). 

Sad thing is, a month later, mum was lost to fly strike so now I'm trying to bottle train his 4 week old brother (see post on "acting odd" thread). 

[waterbuffalofarmer]

I am so sorry to hear that, but all the best of luck hand rearing. I remember 1 year, 2012, we reared about 50 lambs, from a farmer who couldn't rear them, less than half survived, a lot were killed in a bad storm. I still got a few good ewes from them though and one is an awesome animal. I am now currently only rearing 3, 2 females and 1 male. If you put them on lamlac can I recommend a brand? I usually rear the pet lambs on a little watered down buffalo milk, however I have found an alternative powdered milk which is much better than lamlac.
'DENKAVIT' In my opinion it is the best powdered milk on the market, a little expensive, but well worth it.
Hope this helps

[Me]

Lamlac? I'll stick with Waterbuffallo milk thanks. 

[feldar]

We had a similar situation a couple of years ago and ended up penning mum next door to lambs then popping them over every few hours to suck ( holding mum ) whilst they did so. It took two weeks but she eventually accepted them both back and we were even able to turn her out with them without fear of her rejecting them again.
Other than that i fear its a bottle job
Good luck

[Hellybee]

We thought we had a Molly very early on in lambing, even to the point that she was crossed off to go, we kept on persevering with her plus top up bottles, and when I took lambie away from her one afternoon, she went nuts and decided she loved him after all.  She's now a devoted mother ahh x