[Buttermilk]

I have four lambs that are on ad lib lamlac from a hanging bucket with three teats.  Cold weather is forecast as you may be aware and I am worrying about the milk freezing.  The lambs are in a stable with insulated walls and roof but open front.  Concrete floor with wood shavings bedding.

My questions are

How cold is too cold for the lambs to be drinking the milk?

Is there any way I can stop the milk from freezing?

I am thinking of getting up during the night to refresh the bucket instead of giving the lambs 4 litres of milk to see them through until morning anyway but I do not want to have to go back to bottle feeding if I can help it.

[bj_cardiff]

How old are the lambs?

[harmony]

Insulate the bucket. Old jumper or something.

[landroverroy]

I wouldn't worry too much. The lambs will be drinking little and often, not taking in a large amount of milk at a time like they would if fed say 4 times a day. It's highly unlikely to freeze inside an insulated stable at night, assuming the bucket is hung out of direct line of the open front, and assuming also that it is a plastic bucket. Plastic is an excellent insulator (unlike metal) and if you put a lid on, and even insulate it, (as suggested), then the temperature would have to drop to below about minus 10 deg C in the building before the milk will freeze.
How do I know? Years of experience of how cold it has to be for our automatic, open topped, exposed to the elements plastic cattle drinkers to freeze.
Worse case scenario - if we did have (highly unlikely) arctic conditions and the milk froze overnight - the lambs would still be alive and waiting for their next feed in the morning.   
However, it is possible to lower the freezing point by adding a small amount of glycerine. This is a constituent of twin lamb remedy so will merely increase the energy value of the milk as well as stop it freezing. 

[Marches Farmer]

How old are the lambs?

If just a few days then cold milk not a good idea.  How low is the temperature due to go?  If you could rig up the bucket at the back of the shelter with thick straw below and bales at the sides and above it may help. 

[Buttermilk]

How old are the lambs?

The youngest is 5 days and the oldest 12 days.  When I went out with the youngests warm bottle on Tuesday afternoon he was not interested as full of the cool ad lib stuff and has happily been on that since.

The other half has his thinking cap on for making a jacket for the bucket out of a fish box.

[Marches Farmer]

I would be inclined to get up once in the night to check the youngest lamb, but then we take it in turns to check the shed at 2.00 a.m. through lambing anyway.  "Better safe than sorry" is the lambing mantra for us, even if we are like zombies towards the end.

[Buttermilk]

When lambing I too get up to check but I have a 3 week gap until the last two are due to lamb and I am enjoying a full nights sleep.  I will get up to check these lambs in the cold though.

[bazzais]

Could you get a solar power garden water feature and some day charging solar pael lights with batteries and somehow splice them together and circulate the milk?

[Womble]

Hmmm, that seems a bit complicated!  How about filling an empty coke bottle with hot water and putting it inside the bucket before you go to bed?

[bazzais]

Fill the bottle with a hot toddy

[Buttermilk]

Fill the bottle with a hot toddy

For the shepherd or the lambs?