[Smee]

Hello, I was wondering if any of you have any sage advice on my pet lamb? She has been through the wars poor love (and incurred costly vets bills!) and is now about 5 weeks old. The problem is that as soon as she is let out she makes a bee-line for the first bit of soft soil/mud and starts chomping on it. I thought at first it was the usual lamb thing of mouthing various things, but no, she just wants to eat dirt  I've done the usual of ruling out mineral deficiencies with a lamb sized drench etc to no avail.

I did read something on the web that suggests that lambs do this to ingest bacteria to start the rumen???, but she seems to be taking it to extremes. She has been offered creep and coarse mix, even been hand feeding her grass  but doesn't seem to be interesed at all in sheepy food. I's starting to stress me out now on how to bring her on as after all we have been through we wouldn't want to lose her now.

[kanisha]

Many of my lambs when very small make a beeline for the molehills it has never done them any harm. I noticed last week a ewe that had been in and treated for bloat when put out was eating copius amounts of soil, as the soil is heavy clay I asssumed that this was to regulate digestion and line the rumen. I assume your little lamb will be doing something similar. nature and instinct 

There was free free access to a mineral block which she did nibble at but the soil was by far the more preferable. If you don't have a mineral block out I would put on out.