[Paul and Caroline]

Hi - I am a newbie lamb keeper and 10 days ago acquired 6 pet lambs that were then about 5 days old. They are on lamlac milk replacer taking 300ml 4 times daily. They have access to pellets and appear to be eating a small amount of them. They are indoors at the moment and in a well ventilated outbuilding in a pen which I keep very well stocked with straw. They also have plenty of fresh water. My question is that one or two of them have slightly dirty bums and I suspect they are having runny poos - how do I tell the difference between a gippy tummy and full blown scours? I have done 2 full bedding changes so far however today I noticed the smell of ammonia was very strong. They appear to be well in themselves (as far as I can tell) with good appetites and very alert. Am I changing the bedding often enough or should it be more frequent. I will be buying some ground sanitiser tomorrow to treat the floor once the bedding is cleared - any advice would be gratefully received

[Anke]

You also want t give them hay - they need to develop their rumen, and milk and pellets are not going to do that.

What colour and particular smell is the droppings, especially the runny ones?  Are their stomachs bloated too, or just runny bums?

[Paul and Caroline]

Hi Anke

I mainly see deposits on their fleece and tails as opposed to actual droppings. The Straw is quite deep and I haven't actually seen them defecate recently. The deposits are dark brown but sometimes are a 'tan' colour.  After a feed their bellies are quite swollen but I would expect that and after an hour the 'bloating' disappears. I will go and get some gay tomorrow. Interestingly when I replaced the bedding today they all had a good munch at the straw. I had been told not to give them hay until they had been weaned off the milk replacer......

[Anke]

Yep the yoghurt is a good idea, and milk temperature is important too. Many farmers will get their lambs used to cold milk, as it is easier and quicker to feed. It may also be a good idea to make the milk up a bit thinner (i.e. use a bit less powder for same amount of water) to see if that's helping.

My goat kids go mad for readigrass (from the horsey section) at the moment, but that is probably way out of the budget for rearing lambs (I have pedigree dairy goats).

[Paul and Caroline]

Hi Twizzel - the pen is 10' x 6' so not sure if that qualifies as small or large? I take the point about temperature and will work towards a constant temperature cold milk solution. I am working to a 5:1 milk powder/water mix so based on what you have suggested I will dilute it slightly. I will also add some yoghurt to see if that helps.....

[SallyintNorth]

Personally, I stop feeding milk when their tummies start to round out.  You can overfill the abomasum, and they will get digestive upsets if the milk overflows it.

What type of lambs are they?  4x 300ml at 15 days old is quite a lot of volume.  I think Lamlac suggests 1.5L per lamb per day, does it?  The milk I use is a 1L per lamb per day per lamb, but I rarely feed that much, and mine are good commercial Texel type lambs.  At 15 days, mine would be on 3x 250ml, and I'd be working them towards 300ml for the first and last feeds of the day.

If their tummies are very full after each feed, and they're on 4 feeds, they probably aren't getting hungry in between milk meals.  So then they don't eat much straw, or hay if offered, which they need at that age.

[Paul and Caroline]

Hi Sally - yes Lamlac prescribes 1.5 litres per lamb per day (as a maximum) over 4 feeds so I was making sure that I was keeping within that limit (1.2 litres) although in hindsight I have probably gone up to that volume too soon. I am also following the Haynes manual which recommends keeping them on milk until they are 35 days old and eating about 250g of pellets daily. They barely touch it at the moment. I can't put them out on grass yet as my fencing isn't adequate (contractors are coming in next week to sort it).  I have 5 Texel X ewes and a Suffolk ram. I will reduce the volume and concentration, add yoghurt and introduce Hay and will see how it goes.

[Slimjim]

The Lamlac recommendations about quantity to be fed shouldn't be taken as prescriptive for all lambs, given the huge variation there will be in size, breed and appetite. They can be no more than a guide. Fortunately I have not had to bottle feed many of my lambs, but they have generally decided when they've had enough.
I would just try and keep their back ends as clean as you can. That stuff sets like a rock, and I usually wash off what I can then carefully snip off the rest with nail scissors. A smear of of Vaseline then stops it sticking again.
I don't know how much 'ground sanitizer' is, but a 25kg bag of hydrated lime from a builder's merchants will be about £9.50 and so the same disinfecting job. Just be sure to wear a mask when sprinkling it on to the ground before you put the straw down. Good luck with your babies!

[Marches Farmer]

A 10' x 6' pen works out at 10 sq ft per lamb, so will soon get mucky.  If it has a concrete base there's nowhere for the urine to soak away to (why I prefer earth floors in the lambing shed).  Smell of faeces is a good clue - healthy ones smell very little, ones from a lamb with cocci have a distinct, sweetish smell and are often tarry in consistency.  I turn out lambs as soon as I can, provided they have access to shelter at night or if the weather's bad. 

[twizzel]

We use sorgene 5 as a disinfectant- pretty potent stuff even when diluted but will kill most bugs including orf. I would feed according to the bag so lamlac is 200g to 1 litre of water- would keep to this otherwise you will have full lambs but full of weakened milk.

[Hellybee]

Been thinking about your bedding worry.  We tend to start each  area with a good dusting of lime a good shavings/sawdust bed, then straw on top.  Use, then lime again, shavings, dust straw etc etc.  this way the bedding drains well away from the lambs and ewes. Think Deep litter. 


we don't muck it all out until the end of lambing.  The bed gets to about three inches deep, maybe more in some barns, surprisingly dry. 


The type of straw you use also is key.  The yellow bright shiny stuff is nice bright and makes everything nice but we find the shorter duller straw to be far more effective when it come s to absorbancy and coverage .  Long bright straw gets pulled everywhere, short stuff stays put.


Hope that makes sense, cos I tend to do the reverse 

[Marches Farmer]

Wheat straw tends to stay long, barley straw to shatter.

[suziequeue]

I prefer barley straw. Also it's good for the rumen.

[farmers wife]

Pet lambs have a tendency to endlessly gorge and get pot bellies and you need to ensure you are not overfeeding.


I will say though:


I am extremely wary of taking on orphans.  What needs to be ascertained before taking on anyone elses stock is whether the lamb had colostrum within the 24 hours  - if not then can of worms.  If the farmer is a good sheepfarmer and made sure of this in part of his management then there are no concerns.


Farmers who let stock roam adhoc and poorly manage stock cannot guarantee this and can advertise orphan lambs to get rid quick. Years ago they would of just killed them.


It is extremely dangerous to your health and family (more childbearing women) not to be exposed to zoonotic diseases which comes of poorly managed farms.  Community farms are prone to cryptosporidium which is the effect of lack of colostrum and poor hygiene from the start. Hence the scours and children not scrubbing their hands and nails leading to the bug.


Smallholders do not need to be endlessly disinfecting, bedding, liming etc its not necessary if your stocking density is good and general hygiene is acceptable.  We have raised many orphans from over 500 sheep and most certainly didn't spend hours rebedding and no incidences of death at all from this.  Trouble is if one lamb is carrying a virus you need to confine it from the others quickly.

[Paul and Caroline]

Hi everyone thank you for the replies and advice. Our lambs are doing ok and currently on 1 litre of lamlac over 4 feeds (per day) and also building up their consumption of pellets (300g at the moment) between them each day and they have ad lib hay. I am probably overdoing the cleaning out based on your comments and I do a twice weekly full bedding change, replacing with a dusting of sanitising powder direct on the floor and then another dusting on top of the freshly laid straw. I rotate where I put the pen and wash the concrete floor with a weak Jeyes fluid solution once I have moved the pen. I don't have a lot of choice re the type of straw I can get and it is the bright yellow long stuff that I use. The main reason I tend to change the bedding is that the ammonia smell of their urine can get quite strong and as someone said earlier, it's a concrete base so the urine doesn't soak into the ground. I am putting about 6" of straw down which may be excessive(?)

"farmers Wife" the lambs were about 3 days old when I got them and the farmer assured me that they had been fed plenty of Colostrum and had not been outdoors but kept in his nursery pens until I took them.

One of the lambs developed bloat-like symptoms with a distended belly and went off her legs all in the space of about 20 minutes. On the vets advice we gave 10ml of cooking oil and 10 minutes later she did a huge fart which almost blew her back legs off and she was right as rain! As newbies though watching her suffer and apparently dying before our eyes was not a pleasant experience....