[pharnorth]

so the effort of the triplets, and/or something else has bought one of my ewes downhill so on Vets advice yesterday all three were taken off her to let her dry off. I did give them a bottle on occasion throughout the first week in order to have a fall back should the ewe not cope. I didn't have any others to hand rear so was reluctant to take two off her at that stage.  They are mostly chewing at the bottle rather than sucking so taking about 10 minutes to get 25ml in. Currently they have access to water and are eating some grass and some creep feed. Any advice on how to encourage them to take the milk?  They are four weeks 2 days old. Many thanks.

[harmony]

Are they well grown. Do they need to have milk?

[shep53]

As always Time & Patience . At 4wks old they are still totally dependent on milk  , and while you could stop giving them milk but they would go backwards .  On mother they are ruminants at 8-10 wks old due to nibbling grass .   Bottle fed and getting hay or straw plus creep from birth then ruminants  at 5-6 wks old

[Old Shep]

Everyone seems to have different techniques!  For small lambs I sit on a bale or something and have the lamb lie on my knees, have the side of their head to my chest, one hand cupped underneath the chin, bottle in the other, hand under chin also holds around the jaws - even over their nostrils sometimes gets them going!  For older lambs they sometimes prefer to be held between your legs with the side of their head on your leg.    The "thing with the side of the head" is to mimic the position under the ewe where one side of their head is against the inside of the ewes back leg.

Good luck!

[landroverroy]

Lambs that have been feeding off their mother for more than a day or 2 are the most difficult to feed from a bottle.
At 4 weeks old I personally would leave them on their mother for another couple of weeks. Fresh spring grass, available 24/7 should  provide ample nutrients and as they are eating grass and creep then they would be ready to cope without help from their mother in a week or so anyway. If push came to shove they would be alright now, but would cope better by being left on her at least another week. Triplets on a ewe will seldom make the best lambs in the short term, so you've already lost the important first few weeks of premium growth. So they're going to have a slow start whatever you do now and there seems little point in stressing them further by attempting to bottle feed.

[pharnorth]

Thank you for your thoughts and advice. As [member=10279]Old Shep[/member] says everyone has different techniques. I dithered over taking two off her in the beginning, one not being an option but they all had some milk from bottle early on but that is rather different to 100%. I would rather have left them on her for another fortnight now for their sakes, but the Vet's advice was to dry off the ewe and quickly as she had gone done hill very rapidly over just 48 hours so having paid for his advice I was inclined to take it.  I dont feel leaving them on at this stage was an option [member=6533]landroverroy[/member]. They aren't well grown, but are nibbling grass and creep so providing I can get some milk in them I would hope for an earlyish advance to ruminants. One is beginning take take a reasonable amount (120ml per sitting) the other two are closer to 50 to 80ml and not much sucking going on. But I suspect they weren't taking on much more than that from the ewe over the last few days so may need to develop bigger bellies before they knock back better volumes. I'll try the side of head thing.

[WoodlandsDevon]

I definitely agree with trying to simulate natural feeding as this has worked wonders for me. I came across it by chance when I was struggling to force feed a very stubborn lamb who wouldn't suck the bottle teat. I was sitting on a bucket, so low to the ground, and the lamb snuggled between my legs head first  and started trying to nibble my jumper a a trying to find a teat. I grabbed the bottle and put it right at the top of my thigh (basically in my groin!) and he grabbed the teat and sucked 3/4 of this bottle in one go- this was the first time it had sucked from the bottle  of his own accord - I had only ever managed to 'force' feed him half a bottle at a time.
No feeding is a joy and very stress free! I guess it's about trying to 'kid' them into thinking it's the ewe's teat (and it helps if you have a fluffy jumper that smells of sheep! )
Hopefully this may be helpful to someone!

[Marches Farmer]

In the past I've given lambs that I thought might need extra feeding a couple of bottle feeds a day from the beginning.  If they don't then that's fine but if they do then the co-ordination for sucking from a bottle is in place.

[SallyintNorth]

Just keep offering. Don't get frustrated with them, don't let it become a battle.  (Once they're fighting they have lost the inclinaction to feed anyway.). I had one pair, passed to me by a neighbour in exactly the same circs as you.  One started to take the bottle on about day three, the other took a week.  They grew on really well. 

[bazzais]

Yep - dont get annoyed with them - as it can happen when your tired and pushed for the time for the rest of the flock. But dont push your time with something and leave the rest of the flock.

A tickle to the top of the tail sometimes works, keeping your hand cupped over their noses sometimes works, sometimes they cant create the vacuum needed so fingers down the side of the mouth, the intial 'tip of the bottle sometimes frightenes them as it pours out so squeeze the bottle to get a vacume and when you tilt it your not pouting it into theior face - gently pull the nipple in and out, if you can see a small amount of sucking and they cant pull out the milk dont hold the bottle straight up and force it into them squeeze and let them swallow.

Its all hit and miss - hope it keeps well.

[pharnorth]

Thanks to some of your tips and a bit more patience than I knew I had we managed to keep them topped up sufficiently to get to the stage where they are clearly eating grass and a fair amount of creep. The two smaller ones by then had self weaned, in that they liked the creep much more than me (!!!). The larger one who never did manage to find the bottle without me is now also weaned so a good result.