[Julia Mary]

We have a two day old lamb who is nursing like crazy, and mom is helping her, but she is not gaining any weight.  Her brother and sister are doing fine, so it is not mom's milk.  They are Finn sheep, so three lambs is normal.  We supplemented with colostrum and drench, and she willingly took both, but it looks like she is starving to death. She is extremely thin and weak.   Should we put her out of her misery?  I hate to see an animal suffer, but don't want to cull her if she has a chance.   She couldn't even stand yesterday, and is standing today. She was shivering yesterday, we put her under a light and put a heating pad under her.  She is not shivering today, and feels warm.  Her eyes were also closed for the first 24 hours or so, but we put a warm cloth on them today and they finally opened and stayed open, and are bright.   She baas normal, and doesn't seem in pain, but she seems very hungry.   

[twizzel]

Offer her a bottle- if she takes it happily she’s not getting enough milk from mum. My guess would be she’s being pushed out by the other 2.

[Penninehillbilly]

Agree others are taking the milk before she can get in there.
I lost a goat kid because she seemed to be feeding, tail was wagging, too late when I realised, tubed her a couple of times but she died overnight.

[shep53]

 Hope that you have tubed or bottle fed the lamb and it's still alive , i see you've been onto another forum and all the replies have said the same thing ,it' s starving . Because a lamb goes under the mother and dunts the udder and even wags its tail does not mean its getting milk ,it may be getting enough just to keep it alive  , you need to watch the stomach just behind the ribs ,a hungry lamb will have a large depression on both sides of the body then as it suckles the depression starts to fill out and when full should be level with the ribs or slightly dome shaped  ( lambs vary )

[Julia Mary]

Thank you, this is very helpful.   As I mentioned in the other forum, she is now rejecting the bottle, and just crying for mom. But she is still alive, warm, and bright eyed.  She also seems content after she nurses.  I will try again, and will head out there and use your advice about watching the stomach to try and figure out what is going on.   

[Julia Mary]

Update - thank you everyone!  I kept at it and she took the bottle this time!   We will keep at it, and I am very hopeful!   

[Fleecewife]

Even though she is now being bottle fed, you can still keep her with her mother and siblings.  This gives her a family to belong to ie don't separate her.  I wondered when you said she's crying for her mother. If they're housed then it's easier until they all get used to her being bottle fed. I did this with a lamb last year and after a while her dam would bring her up to be fed in the field, even though she had rejected the lamb initially.

[SallyintNorth]

We regularly top up triplets in the field.  It's a much better option for the lamb than being taken off to rear as a cade / "pet lamb", and much easier on the human too. 

Well done for getting it to take a feed.

Here's a pic I marked up showing the lovely convexity of a well-fed lamb's little belly.  The bulgy bits feel like a puppy, not like an empty bag.

[Julia Mary]

Good to know about keeping her with her family, so thank you for adding that piece of information.  I was hoping to do that, and for now we had done been doing that and just going out there, but watching closely to be sure mom wasn't rejecting her.  After the lamb feeds, she runs back to mom and they nuzzle.   Mom watches me VERY carefully while I bottle feed, not quite sure what she thinks of it all!  They are all in a small barn for now, and it seems to be working well - in just one day she has picked up some weight (I can't believe how fast this has happened!) and her stomach looks a little more normal and fed, and she's even playing with her brother and sister a little.   Just not sure when we can put them all out with the others in the paddock, we usually keep the ewe with her lambs in the barn for about three days, then they join the others, and it has seemed to work well, but I am thinking we need at least a few more days with this situation.   

[SallyintNorth]

Once the lamb comes running to your call and jumps onto the bottle without assistance you can put the family out.  Obvs try in a small area first, and make sure the ewe is happy about it.  (I have had one ewe wouldn't let you top her lamb up in the field, but most seem to understand that it's helping them, once they're used to the idea.)