[Pebbles]

Hi all

I'm looking for some help and advice.

I have a litle lamb living with me being hand reared. Her mother abandoned her straight after a difficult birth in the early evening - no amount of penning them and trying to encourage her to accept the lamb worked. The following day we tried to get a ewe who had lost her lamb to take it, but the poor lamb was headbutted so hard I worried it would be killed

Her name is Alice, and is as cute as can be - and soooo intellegent too! She has been fed on 'shepherdess' formula and, for the first few days, she took it well and began to last through the night without a feed.

She is now 10 days old. Her pooh has never been solid (apologies for the following graphic detail) more a loose mustard colour and at 5 days old she started to strain and whimper when passing 'solids' which came out with flecks of blood and strands of mucus. We put her on a water & glucose diet for 24 hours and at first it semed to have worked (a couple of 'normal' poohs) but she then went loose again. She began to nibble bits of grass at the farm and her poohs were still soft/ mustard but with some fibre through it.

Since day 4 I have tried to introduce her to little lamb pellets - she won't touch them (even when they are dusted with a tiny bit of formula powder) she also won't touch the water I offer her in a bowl. Last night she was whimpering and straining most of the night and is not taking as much formula as before/ as much as required on the instructions. She has also developed a huge taste for....paper!!! Newspaper, cardboard, documents, books....

She appears very 'full' and healthy - she's extremely active too, but I am getting worried about her lack of feeding, loose poohs and lack of interest in the pellets.

Has anyone had any similar experience? Any tips?

Thank you

Pebbles

[rustyme]

I would think there are a few on here that will have the right answer for you , but if the pooh is a mustard colour and smells sweet ? then it sounds very much like scours. Not sure how to stop that with lambs but with calves I know comfrey works very well at stopping it dead in its tracks, the scours that is not the calf....
 http://www.sheep101.info/201/diseasesa-z.html
 
if worms can be taken out of the equation ? then stress would seem a likely  cause....hope someone can help more than I can ...good luck and fingers crossed...Russ

[woollyval]

Hi Pebbles

How many feeds per day and how much per feed, what breed too?
Do not let her near grass or anything green but provide her with soft sweet smelling hay as she needs to start nibbling fibre....hence the paper. As she is having milk don't worry about the water! Offer the lamb pellets. I suspect she may be having a little too much milk! Did she get enough colostrum when born? Did you milk some off her mum and feed it? That may have a bearing on long term survival. Don't worry too much and get in touch if you are worried

[Pebbles]

Hi WoolyShepherd

She is on 4 feeds a day - 2 of nearly 500ml and 2 of 250ml

She is a scottish blackface x blue face leicester, now two weeks old and did get a little feed from mum before being abandoned - we didn't manage to get any milk from her.

She still won't touch the pellets although she has been nibbling at the smaller parts of the ewes course feed!  She has also started to sip water from a bowl and nibbles/ sucks slices of apples that I prepare for the pigs.

She has been nibbling some grass but also 'sucks' strands of hay (she seems to know what she wants) although I'll now encourage more hay and less grass.

She is extremely active and filling out well, quite a character too. 

Many thanks for the advice.

Pebbles

[Pebbles]

Hi Russ

Thanks for the link - a great site with soooo much information. I think you are right as it is sweet smelling. I'll hold off giving her comfrey until I'm sure that's ok for lambs.

Hope all is well with you - I'm folloing your progress in the veggie plot 

Don't work too hard

Pebbles

[woollyval]

Hi Pebbles

She sounds fine! Don't worry about her eating the ewe mix...if she likes it better thats fine!.......just tons of hay.....put it in a low rack or cloth bag with a hole in it so she dosent walk on it. It might be better to feed 4 x 300ml feeds as 500ml is quite a lot in one go!
She will have fantastic wool with that cross!........so depending on her ultimate fate will provide lovely knitting wool or a super skin!
Good luck!

[Pebbles]

Oh thank goodness for that! She does look well and is growing before my eyes.

She along with our other female ewes will be kept for breeding (to cross with Suffolks), we're keeping a few of our 'good mums too' and then add to the flock in late Autumn after the others have 'left us' 

I'll try and even out her feeds to 300ml - she's such a little guzzler though 

Thanks for your help and reassurance. Hope all is well with you.

Pebbles

[Farmer Giles]

Hmm interesting thread for a 'newbie' as we have a little problem with our little problem.

I've noticed that Poppy's (the subject of my post Oh What A Night) doings are very loose, black and have a dreadful niff  She seems to be eating OK and is lively if a little unsteady on her pins, any ideas anyone??

 

[woollyval]

Should be yellow by now .....how much milk is she actually getting? Take off mum who as I said in other post has mastitis and bottle with powdered milk, or goats milk if you have access to any