[Hillview Farm]

Yesterday morning I lambed the third of a triplet. Lamb was coming out spine first and I managed to get her out backwards and upside down. I thought I was pulling a dead lamb.

She's small and like a bag of bones. Tubed her colostrum and left her with the ewe. Took her home last night as she was cold.

tubed her again and she now toddles about  but will not stuck. Has had a little pee and poo.

Her mouth still feels cold and I'm unsure how often I should tube (I really hate doing it),  how much to give her and generally I don't know what to do to get her to feed.

Any advice? I wish I could upload a picture from my phone

[Hellybee]

Get one of those teeny teats from farm shop, they're usually red teat and yellow screw on top for pop bottle, she may take it. Also get her a watery mouth treatment just in case, also   Giving some more colostrum would be a good thing.  You can slo get a vitamin spray for poorly lambs, nettex do one.  Hope little one improves for you, lots of cuddles and mothering from you would be good for her too.  A good start a pee and a poo, getting that meconium out brill x

[SallyintNorth]

Collate, or Lamb Kick-Start, or similar, gives a shot of vitamins and sugars, just squirt into the mouth. 

I know what you mean about the repeated tubing, but she's maybe just needing an extra 24 or 48 hours.  She's small, so I'd be inclined to do 150ml feeds (max) every 6 hours.  You can't tell from the front end whether you're overfilling the milk stomach, so until you've established the feed size, after tubing 100ml in, check her tummy like you would any other lamb to see if she seems full (convex) or still hungry (not convex, or even concave.)  Less at a time, more often, is safer - if you have the time.

[Hillview Farm]

I've taken her temp it's 38.6  degrees so will get on Google in a minute.

She had a suck this morning and after was very rough sounding chest and now has laboured breathing.

I've just given her some combivit. I didn't think about kick start!

[Foobar]

Temperature ok then.

Keep tubing.  You could also tube some glucose solution in ... I did that last year on one and it worked wonders.

[Foobar]

10% glucose solution that is, warm as you would colostrum/milk.  10ml per kg maybe?

[Hillview Farm]

I don't have any glucose unfortunately. Will get some.

Forgot to say. Last night when I tubed her after 5 or so minutes she had some milk come out of her nose. Just tubed her and it's happened again. I can hear her stomach churning. Breathing is clear but laboured. She chooses to stay away from the heat lamp.

Have an awful feeling I'm going to loose her

[SallyintNorth]

Sorry, but it sounds as though some milk has got into her lungs.  Possibly when she sucked, and/or when tubed.

They do sometimes recover from this - but they don't always. 

[Hillview Farm]

Exactly why I hate tubing.

She is so bright though it's heartbreaking.

[Foobar]

Can you see if you can encourage her to cough it up?  Tickling up the nose etc?  I've had a few that have sounded rough for the first couple of days but have come right by themselves.


It might be that she's not properly developed inside?, so just do your best and keep at it and hope she perks up.

[Marches Farmer]

I prefer to squeeeze in milk drop by drop from a bottle with a tiny hole in the teat.  Takes a lot of time but the swallowing reflex works even if suckling is non-existent. 

[fsmnutter]

Sounds like you're feeding too much at one time.
My rule of thumb when lambing was one syringe for triplets, two for twins and three for singles. If very small, even as low as 30-40ml at a time. They should get about 10-20% of body weight per 24hrs, so then work out how many feeds necessary to get that into her.
A very wise old shepherd I learned from said if a stomach tube goes down the wrong hole, the lamb is so weak it would probably have died anyway even with intervention to warm and feed it.
If you feel the throat as you pass the tube, you will feel two firm tubes - the windpipe and the stomach tube. If down the wrong hole, you will only feel the windpipe with the stomach tube inside it.
So he prefers to tube everything over bottle feeding as you can feed them fast and reliably, where they can choke on bottles, and then they go on an adoptive mother or shepherdess feeder.
If she has inhaled milk, she will need antibiotics and ideally antiinflammatories to reduce the damage from the aspiration pneumonia.
At 38.6, tottling around, peeling and pooping, she has a chance.

[SallyintNorth]

I have a number of tips I use to be sure I've got the tube in the right place, some of which have been mentioned and others not.

• you should be able to see the tube travelling down the front of the throat, if you can't take it out and try again
• before you start, measure the length of the tube against the lamb.  If you're getting resistance before it reaches the length it should take to reach the stomach, you're probably in the lungs.  Take it out and try again.
• Before dripping the milk in, hold the end of the tube up to your ear.  You should hear stomach gurglings.  You should not hear rhythmic breathing sounds.  If you can hear breath, you are in the lungs.  Take it out and try again.

Sometimes I've been close to tears, taking a tube out for a 6th attempt...  But I've only ever once given up.  Oh, and remember to keep the tube tip lubricated - I dip it in the milk - so it doesn't damage the throat.

That's a helpful ready-reckoner for quantities, fsmnutter  :bookmark: 

Up to now, I've used the tiny bottle that comes with my kit (and I really don't like these new kits that come with 200ml syringes.  ), and only given that much (it's about 75ml, I think) for a first feed.  I let gravity do the work (really don't like the syringes because people no doubt pump the milk in, irrespective if there's room for it )  If the milk isn't going down, I might wiggle the tube slightly, but if the milk won't travel unless I start to withdraw the tube by more than 1", then I know the stomach is full for now, and tip the extra milk onto the ground before withdrawing the tube - because if there's still milk in the tube as you withdraw it, it will keep coming out as the tube tip travels back up, and there's a possibility of getting milk into the lungs as the tube tip comes back through the throat.

I agree, I don't like tubing, and I try to get them onto a bottle as soon as I can.  However, if done right, tubing is safer than dribbling milk into the mouth of a lamb that won't suck properly, because they can and do aspirate the milk when you do that.

[Foobar]

tip the extra milk onto the ground before withdrawing the tube - because if there's still milk in the tube as you withdraw it, it will keep coming out as the tube tip travels back up, and there's a possibility of getting milk into the lungs as the tube tip comes back through the throat.

Pinch the end of the tube as you withdraw it, that will stop anything that's left in the tube dripping out on it's way up out of the lamb.

[Hillview Farm]

She died this afternoon she had been going down hill all day and her temperature had been dropping all day too.

I have a feeling something wasn't quite right inside.

Thank you everyone for your comments.