# Lamb born in 114F temps.  Any special precautions?



## soarwitheagles (Jul 8, 2017)

Hi everyone!  Sure has been a long time since I visited this portion of BYH!  I suppose that is good news!

Ok, most ewes here are giving twins every 8 months now, so we are very happy about this.  We were losing money for the first year, and now, finally, have free lawn mowers, free food, and free lambs every 8 months.  For us, that equates to making money, after losing money at first.

114 F today.  It was blistering hot.  Mama ewe gave birth to our first summer lamb of the year last night [lots more to come].  I am super glad she chose to give birth last night rather than in the heat of the day...

Fast forward to today...by noon, I think it was up over 100 F.  By 5 pm, it was exactly 114 F.  Around 11 am I noticed the new born was keeping its mouth wide open like a venus fly trap for hours at a time.  That kinda bothered me because none of our sheep have ever done that...

I watched the new lamb carefully, checking every hour or so.  Being a firm proponent of proactive choices, I decided to give the lamb some help.  Here is what I did:

1. Was careful to watch the lamb and make sure he was drinking his colostrum filled milk from mama.
2. Gave him 3 grams of that nasty looking black paste for babies in the syringe looking apparatus.
3. Filled another syringe with a mixture of bottled water and TS colostrum and a super tiny pinch of electrolytes, , and shot it in the lambs mouth three times during the hottest part of the day.
4. Made sure mama ewe kept baby in the shade.

This lambs first day of life was a hot one.  Are there any other recommendations?

Thank you!


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## LocoYokel (Jul 8, 2017)

O Dear! ...and I thought I was having kit problems with my bunz in unseasonal temps!  I would suggest asking @Latestarter or @Southern by choice for the best advice for lambs/kids in extreme heat. 
Can you set up a fan for it?  Frozen jugs might help too. 
Wishing you and your lamb the best...

(Edit: just hit me, "lots more to come", if you have a shady area lightly misting it several times a day will help by evaporation, just do not overwater, standing humidity can cause fungal and bacterial growth)


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## Southern by choice (Jul 8, 2017)

Tagging those that are in your region- I have no idea... we do not get those temps here.
It gets hot and we have high humidity - the other day when we went out you couldn't even breathe it was so bad.
We have fans in our barn and lots of trees... but  your temps NAH ,,, not here thankfully.
Most people avoid summer kidding (goat people too) because the lambs/kids do not grow as well.
I know there are others but these two come to mind quickly
@babsbag @ragdollcatlady


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## Goat Whisperer (Jul 8, 2017)

Does the lamb have raspy breathing? 
What is the temp of the lamb?

We have had a few newborns pant when it got really hot, but not as bad as you describe. 


The lamb may have aspirated on fluids while or after being born… that will contribute big time. Kids that aspirated fluid while being born seem to almost always have a harder time in the high heat (and humidity). 

Right now I think your best bet would be to keep them in a shaded area (obviously). 
Do you have a safe area in the back woods that they can stay in? That was the absolute best place for our meat goats. But they had LGDs.


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## Latestarter (Jul 8, 2017)

Sorry, but I can't help on this one. I know that @Bossroo used to raise sheep commercially (in CA) and perhaps he has some advice to offer. Another who does sheep in a hot climate is @The Old Ram-Australia but he only visits sporadically. Hopefully he'll see that he's been tagged and stop by for a visit. Other Sheeple who may have something to offer include @Sheepshape @mysunwolf @Roving Jacobs possibly @SheepGirl if she comes on and there are others as well. Hope it's nothing serious and the lamb comes around. Good luck with all your upcoming lambing.


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## Bossroo (Jul 8, 2017)

Soar,  what you did is good.  I would bring the lamb and ewe into an open barn and turn on a HUGE fan to get lots of air movement over them but not directly on them. A mister would also be good.  Another thing you could do is set a soaker hose on the roof's ridge and turn it on low and slow so that the water could carry the heat off of the roof as the water flows down .  Hint, this is the reason that Cal. as well as the HOT areas of the West shepherds do not have their ewes lamb in the heat of Summer. These lambs just do not do nearly as well as those born in Oct. , Nov. and Dec., so they will suck any profit out in the form of extra labor, power, water costs then bring less at sale time. If you want 2 lamb crops per year , try to time the lambing for Oct. and for a second crop in April however if you do not have irrigated pastures the April lambs will cost you more to raise and profit would be razor thin if any.  Good luck.


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## Sheepshape (Jul 8, 2017)

No experience with real heat, we have a pretty mild climate here....but the raspy  lamb may well have aspirated during birth as GW said. If that seems to be the case, then antibiotics will help, but the lamb may well have lung damage in the long term.

Whatever, mum and lambs need shade and mum needs lots and lots of water.

I only lamb once a year as  a) Lambing (and lactation) takes a lot out of the ewe and I think they need time to recover b) I have seasonal breeding sheep and c) I'm a real softy with my sheep and don't want them to be pushed too hard.

If ewes get too thin and 'worn' after they have had lambs they won't come into season and if  a ewe has to be 'flushed' every time to ovulate she'll 'burn out' fast AND flushing means buying lots of additional goodies to get the ewe in shape. Whereas I don't advocate my sheep husbandry methods, my ewes will largely produce strong lambs for 7-8 years without having to resort to too much by way of additional feed etc.

Whatever, soar, you sound as though you are doing the right things, and good luck with the lambs.

We currently have daytime temps of about 70 and I find that too hot....what  a wimp! However, we over here cannot manage with any extremes of climate as we so rarely get them.......


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## soarwitheagles (Jul 9, 2017)

Thank you for the great info everyone!  I appreciate you taking the time to share your advice and expertise.

Today, it was only 107 F!  So it is beginning to cool down.  I think by next week, we should be back into the high 90's.

The lamb in question appears to be doing better.  His mouth is no longer open like a venus fly trap and he appears to be hopping, skipping, jumping, etc. at various times during the day!  So I am taking this as a good sign.

I did not take his temp.  Not sure how to do that!  I like the fan and soaker hose ideas.  Never entered my mind!  There is plenty of shade in each of the paddocks...but they need to choose to go into the shaded areas, and most of them do so on there own. 

I have no control over when the ewes give birth because I keep all sheep together for most of the year.

I suppose I could control some of the cycles by only permitting the breeder ram in with the ewes during special seasons...

The problem with this is the ewes are going into heat all year round, and we would like the maximum number of lambs each year [is this problem called greed]?

I read somewhere that some breeds of sheep only go into heat during a specific time of the year.  And there is a name for that.  I also read that other sheep go into heat all year round.  That is what we have here and I believe there is a name for that too.

We have many ewes that gave birth in Oct-Nov. but are now ready to drop new lambs again.  I suppose I am just trying to let them do it their own natural way.

Please remember, I am totally new to all this, and we kind of look at this entire adventure as a type of experiment.

If all or most of the lambs born this summer make it, we would be delighted!

If we run into more problems, we are ready to implement several of the ideas you have shared with us here at BYH.

Thanks again for all your help everyone!


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## babsbag (Jul 9, 2017)

Aren't you just loving this weather? I didn't think it could get hotter than Redding but I think you had us beat yesterday. I have never had goats born in temps over 100° but I do have young ones out right now, they are about 3 weeks old.  I just make sure they can reach the water troughs and I also run a sprinkler for 3 minutes every hour to keep the dirt damp where they like to hang out. 

My goats are seasonal breeders so I breed in Aug-Jan. But there are some breeds that will breed year round and some people do multiple breedings in year but most that I know do 3 kiddings (or lambings) in two years. 

Interesting reading.
http://www.sheep101.info/201/lambingsystem.html

I have had puppies born in this kind of weather and I set up misters and a fan for them but they are a little easier (a lot) to contain as newborns.


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## ragdollcatlady (Jul 9, 2017)

I hose down all shaded areas several times a day for my goats when we are over 100. Even newborns will drink water if it is over 100 degrees outside, so make sure there are shallow buckets with fresh water in easy reach. You can hang shade cloth and burlap/mesh on fences or barn door openings to hose down if you have a wind or fans to create cooling breezes if you are so fortunate.


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## secuono (Jul 9, 2017)

Get a rectal thermometer or a regular oral human thermometer and stick it in the bum to get lamb temps. Very easy. 

Seasonal breeders breed in the Fall for Spring lambs. That'd be 'natural'.

Accelerated or Off-season/out-of-season breeders can breed usually any time of the year. 
But such constant breeding can shorten breeding lifespan or otherwise negatively affect ewe health.


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## The Old Ram-Australia (Jul 10, 2017)

Latestarter said:


> Sorry, but I can't help on this one. I know that @Bossroo used to raise sheep commercially (in CA) and perhaps he has some advice to offer. Another who does sheep in a hot climate is @The Old Ram-Australia but he only visits sporadically. Hopefully he'll see that he's been tagged and stop by for a visit. Other Sheeple who may have something to offer include @Sheepshape @mysunwolf @Roving Jacobs possibly @SheepGirl if she comes on and there are others as well. Hope it's nothing serious and the lamb comes around. Good luck with all your upcoming lambing.



G'day,sorry I'm a bit slow ,but we had to change satellites 2 weeks ago and on the 2nd day the system 'went down'.It seems the NBN has received a "dud lot of modems'.So it got fixed today.As to the problem we only get 40C (100F) in summer ,but it seems to me that the "key" is "deep shade" as the ground temp tends to be a fair bit cooler there ,its much the same in the winter as it tends to be "warmer' in there. That's about the best I can offer on the subject,apart from suggesting lambing a little earlier in the spring.We always try for mid spring but even then sometimes it snows in the middle of our lambing...T.O.R.


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## soarwitheagles (Jul 10, 2017)

Thank you again everyone for very, very good ideas.  I will look today for some of those "misters."  I remember having one years ago that was made of brass and you simply hooked it up to the end of the garden hose and sure enough, turned the summer garden into a subtropical rain forest!

Most of the shade in the perennial planted pastures is filtered shade from the eucalyptus trees.  Now we will look into erecting a simply shade structure or even move the hoop house we made last year!


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