Have just happened upon this site and it seems to be just what we need.
We bought our old Canarian farmhouse 12 years ago and have been renovating the house and land. We have around 7,000M2 of usable land (not sure what that is in English money!) and about the same going into a valley where I would love to put bees in the future. I have a question for today, but lots more for the future too.
We have just taken delivery of our first goat and two sheep last Monday and on Wednesday morning one of the ewes had given birth to twins, one of which was dead and the other not able to stand as it was so weak. I milked the ewe for the first 4 days and fed this to the lamb but she developed a rattly chest. Took her to the vet and I have been giving her Sub-cutaneous antibiotic injections every 12 hours. She is now doing really well, eating 6-7 ounces of milk per feed and amazingly her own mother is very pleased to see her when we take her out to the barn. I am very keen for her to live with the sheep and not in the house as we do intend to raise her for meat and don't want any of us (I have two children) to get too attached to her. My questions are therefore:-
1. Can she go through the night without a feed now? The barn is not that close to the house and there are no lights out there to see. She also wasn't that hungry this morning after taking 7 ounces at 3am, so only took 2 ounces.
2. I have penned her in with her mum who is very happy with her, but just not feeding her, is it a good idea to leave her there for the night? If she needs a night feed though I'll have to bring her in so this question may be void. The temperature drops to around 12 degrees C at night.
Thanks