[Old Shep]

Hi everyone, we don't start lambing until 1st April (we are lambing 101 ewes this year) and thoughts are turning to what we would do better this year.  One thing we are looking at is our colostrum management.  With most lambings we would just watch the lambs and ensure that they suckle before leaving them to it.  However its very tempting at 2 am after you've been up since 5 am if the lambs are not getting on with it to give them powdered colostrum so you know they're ok till morning. However they are then a bit more full and maybe won't suckle as keenly amd miss out on proper antibodies. Obviously stripping the ewe out and feeding its own colostrum to the lamb is a better solution.  The second best is colostrum from another ewe.


My question is I know the window of opportunity for gettin good colostrum into the lamb is 6 hours, and I presume that is the premium period for the lab to absorb the antibodies.  How many hours after lambing will the ewe produce colostrum and when does it become just milk?  Just thinking if an old lass just has one lamb and has milk to spare, how quickly do you have to take milk off her for it still to have antibodies? So we can store it for those late night short cuts.

[Sbom]

I use cow colostrum instead. I freeze loads in small batches for exactly these times. Was trying to defrost some at 11 last night. Cows produce loads more so much easier to collect and save in big batches

[Old Shep]

I remember Mum and Dad doing that - the freezer always had tupperware containers of "new calven "milk!  But we don't have cows now so don't have that option.

[shep53]

As  rough guide the first 20hrs maybe less in shearlings as they generally produce less colostrum .         Often quoted that as cow colostrum is of  lower quality you need to use maybe a 1/3rd more.

[Old Shep]

As  rough guide the first 20hrs maybe less in shearlings as they generally produce less colostrum .         Often quoted that as cow colostrum is of  lower quality you need to use maybe a 1/3rd more.

Thank you

[Backinwellies]

Cow colostrum is not going to have antibodies to sheep diseases.  Store some from your first few lambing ewes.

[landroverroy]

It's not an ideal world and there are pros and cons for everything.

Ideally you cannot burn the candle at both ends. So you can't carry on getting up at 5am and still be bright and thinking straight at 2am. You certainly can't carry on like that for a minimum of 3 weeks. So, unless you have help you maybe need to rethink your system.

I used to lamb 100 sheep on my own with a minimum of difficulties. but you have to accept that you can't be there all the time, so you have to have faith in the sheep. If a ewe's lambed before and raised her lambs ok then there's no reason why she shouldn't do it again without any need to supplement her colostrum.  An old farmer I knew only lambed ewes that had been proved as mothers as he accepted that the times of staying up all night were past.

So - as for colostrum - I would accept that the best is from one of your own ewes (if available) and next best is goat's, or powdered. Cows colostrum is better than nothing. I've used it very successfully so I'm not knocking it - though some do. As for how long a ewe produces effective colostrum - I reckon that as long as it's yellow and looks like colostrum, then it'll do the job. I've milked a ewe the day after she lambed and still found it worked ok.

Whether to give a lamb a colostrum supplement depends on the ewe. If you've reason to doubt a ewe's suckling ability - like she's very flighty or pushing a lamb away, and you are almost asleep on your feet then give the lamb something and get off to bed. You know then it won't die while you're asleep and you can reassess the situation once you've had a break.

A useful tip I read, which seems to work (at least partly) is that if you feed the sheep late on - like just before bedtime - they tend to lamb in the morning. If you feed them early morning, then say in the afternoon, they tend to lamb at night.   

[Marches Farmer]

We lamb over three weeks and generally give good quality powdered colostrum within half an hour of birth, unless the lamb has suckled from an experienced ewe in that time.  As landroverroy says, sometimes it just allows you to stumble back to bed confident the lamb will be OK until the next check.  I generally milk off and freeze some colostrum from ewes on their third or fourth lactation that have a single, as quality and quantity will be high.  This is kept in reserve for any lambs that are small or have had a difficult birth.

[Me]

Ok I've cracked. Giving a protein feed stimulates the gut to shut down. This takes as little as 2hrs from the time the protein hits the stomach. Better to put the lamb in a warm sterile environment with no food at all for a few hrs then give actual colostrum than pump it full of rubbish and go back to bed - unless there are antibodies in your dried colostrum that are able to make it into the lamb it is in immunity, time and monetary terms it is a total waste of time. 

[waterbuffalofarmer]

We freeze colostrum from the buffalo all the way to 4th day. If need be instead of colostrum you can give them yogurt with milk and honey to newborns and it helps put good bacteria in the gut, of course it's not the same as colostrum in that it doesn't have as many antibodies, but it can be good for them if you haven't any. I use live sheeps yogurt from woodlands dairy. I would not recommend using powdered colostrum as it's not got the best ingredients in it, fresh is always good. If the lamb isn't suckling, pen up the mum and milk her out and feed it to the lamb, this not only helps it to stay alive but the ewe will accept it as it smells of her all the best with lambing, forgive the long post lol. Lambing will begin for us in 2 months now, so not long to go

[Sbom]

Ok I've cracked. Giving a protein feed stimulates the gut to shut down. This takes as little as 2hrs from the time the protein hits the stomach. Better to put the lamb in a warm sterile environment with no food at all for a few hrs then give actual colostrum than pump it full of rubbish and go back to bed - unless there are antibodies in your dried colostrum that are able to make it into the lamb it is in immunity, time and monetary terms it is a total waste of time.

Genuine question...... as I don't buy it or use it but.......

Is powdered colostrum not good?  I know it's very expensive, I presumed this is because of all the good stuff it contained?
Surely it wouldn't be made if it was no good? but then I guess the average person couldn't tell anyway   

[Me]

If you can find information proving that there are appropriate antibodies in your chosen product and that those antibodies appear in the lamb after feeding in useful amounts then it is great. If not it is snake oil and can even be harmful when used as a substitute for actually useful ewe colostrum - hence I posted.

First google hit got this one. It says a lot about nutrition... not a lot about antibodies - not to say 100% it doesn't have any.... but interesting there is no claim?

This ultra concentrated colostrum from Nettex for lambs has quick-absorption technology, and is easy to mix. It is a great nutritional supplement that can be added to the feed of newborn lambs.
Quick absorption
Contains antioxidants
 Highly nutritional 
Contains Vitamin E and energy to assist with stress and hypothermia for new borns 
2.5kg

[Marches Farmer]

Better to put the lamb in a warm, sterile environment

How do you achieve this in a large lambing shed with several ewes lambing at the same time?

[Penninehillbilly]

Better to put the lamb in a warm, sterile environment

How do you achieve this in a large lambing shed with several ewes lambing at the same time?

Or out in the field?

[Me]

How do I achieve it? On the commercial side if there are triplets born and I decide to remove one I bring it in the house and put it in a clean, dry warm area until I have defrosted some colostrum or milked some off another ewe and I have time to deal with it, then it may go to the pet lamb pen. I don't see having several ewes lambing at once prevents anybody putting a lamb in a warm, clean place if its mother cannot look after it.