[westcoastcroft]

Hi Folks

Got Shetlands and had my second one lamb this morning. She was a year old so a first timer(also my first year lambing), the lamb weighed, 1.5kg, about half what my first did, although the mother is small.
Saw her first thing and she seemed to be in very early stages of labour (but was lively, came to the bucket and then went off to graze), I needed to go to work so went off and came back 2 hours later to check and found her calling and sniffing around a bit and a dead lamb which the birds had been at (definitely wasn’t there before).
Obviously the answer is shouldn’t have gone to work for those 2 hours! But she seemed fine and it felt fine to leave her at the time with the plan to check shortly and make sure labour was progressing/check on the lamb.

Is there any way to tell from the look of the lamb if it was still born or whether she wandered off shortly after birth?
By the time I got there it was semi dry and had little mucus or membrane to speak of either on its body or covering its mouth/nose – which would indicate to me that she maybe licked it and so on – would she do that with a stillborn? It wasn’t smelly or anything.

Grrr
 

[shep53]

No way to tell since she had cleaned and yes even dead she would still have done this , if it was well dead when born then cloudy eyes and a pale tongue .  At 1.5 kg it would have very little brown fat so would loose heat the moment it was born and depending on the temp would go hypothermic quickly

[harmony]

You could see if there is air in the lungs.

[Marches Farmer]

When you notice primitive or mountain breed sheep are lambing they're generally very close to giving birth.   We've often checked the lambing shed and seen no sign whatsoever of the Badger Face lambing down, gone indoors for a cup of coffee and checked again 20 minutes later to find a ewe licking off the second twin.  A very small lamb will need warmth and colostrum straight away, particularly if the ewe has taken her time lambing down and it's tired when born.  Even then, the tinies often don't make it.  If it was stained a mustard colour labour was probably a long one and it was stressed enough to defecate before birth.  If it was covered in very short fleece with soft horn on the foot, maybe with the front of the horn curled up slightly like a Turkish slipper, then it could well have been slightly premature.

[farmers wife]

lets of lambs die in last few days, birth - could of lacked oxygen, suffocated on delivery....endless its sadly part of it.  Sheep and death seem to work hand in hand I'm afraid. 


Its usual to have prem lambs, poor lambs etc on the first lot born.


Sheep farmers live with this all the time. 

[atlanta]

If your ewe is only one year old, that means you put a tup on a ewe lamb.  At 6 months or so, a Shetland ewe lamb is not mature.  Very few Shetland breeders would tup their ewe lambs, but if they did, would expect a small lamb.  As you were not there at birth, it will remain a mystery as to what happened, but quite likely the little ewe did not know what to do. 

[Dogwalker]

1.5kg is too small even for a shetland.  My smallest this year were 2 x 1.9kg twins from a first time 2 year old small ewe.   Shetlands are too slow growing to tup as lambs.

[SallyintNorth]

I don't plan to tup mine as ewe lambs, but last year hadn't the option to keep the little girls separate.  I managed them as in-lamb ewe lambs, of course.  All but one lambed, every one of them did absolutely fine.  All lambed unaided, outside, all cleaned their lambs, every lamb fed.  All the mothers did well.  There' were a few losses, but none at the point of birth or in the first 24 hours. 

All the mothers grew well, and at the end of the summer I couldn't see a difernrce between the ones that lambed and the one that didn't.

These were pure Shetlands, Shetland crosses  (Manx x and Castlemilk Moorit x) as well as 1/4 BFlLs.

So whilst I do prefer to give them the extra time to grow, my experience is that, managed correctly, Shetlands and other primitives can lamb successfully at one year old.

[westcoastcroft]

Hi Folks

Thanks for all the replies.

Had decided to Tup at 8 months as all ewe lambs were above 70% of the their mothers weights by then - will see how the other do - this lamb was a little early, the ewe hasn't kept up with the others in terms of growth since tupping and keeper inexperienced. Will update on how the others do in due course


Cheers