# Lily had a Little lamb..and a Big lamb



## Bridgemoof (Feb 21, 2012)

Well, this being my first lambing experience, I am pretty sure the female lamb is very small. The boy is probably average, he seems pretty robust actually. Our Jacob ewe, Lily, had her twins today, and the little one is struggling to keep up. I had to hold her up to her mom's nipple, and she seems to be able to get some milk from it. She has very wobbly legs and can't stand for very long on her own. I've been holding her up all day off and on. She can stand a little, but she is so small she cant even hardly reach her mom's nipple. Her mom is small, too. The mom hasn't rejected her as far as I can tell, but isn't being extremely helpful. 

So my plan is to go out there every 3 or 4 hours and help her through the night and then if she isn't able to do it on her own tomorrow, maybe get a milk replacement? I'm not sure and could really use some advice from some experienced shepherds!

I will try and post a picture here, but usually I am a big FAIL at doing that on this forum.







Thanks everyone!
Bridget


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## bonbean01 (Feb 21, 2012)

Congratulations!!  Love the spots on them.  Hope the little one can nurse on her own soon...you are such a good shepardess putting her on to nurse so often


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## RemudaOne (Feb 21, 2012)

Congratulations on the lambs  Very cute.  I'm new to this too, but your plan sounds good to me.  If you can keep that lamb on the ewe, your life will be much easier!  THAT, I can tell you from experience, lol.  It sounds like the little one has gotten some colostrum and that's a good thing.  If you can keep her on the ewe at least for 24 hours, she should get all the colostrum she needs and that will go a long way towards making sure she has a good start and gets stronger.  Good luck, I'll keep my fingers crossed for you and I hope you'll keep us posted

ETA:  Oh, and I would make it no less frequent than every three hours


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## Bridgemoof (Feb 21, 2012)

Thanks, it's such a relief to know someone is listening, lol.

I just went out and when I turned the light on she started crying (gosh it breaks your heart, doesn't it?). The other one wasn't, so I'm guessing she's hungry. I helped her get some good suckles in, and will go back out at midnight. I guess I better try and catch a few winks!

Thanks everyone!


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## elevan (Feb 21, 2012)




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## Bridgemoof (Feb 21, 2012)

Midnight and she's still hanging in there! Hopefully she'll be stronger tomorrow. Poor little thing. I don't think she's more than 3 pounds, if that.


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## dreamriver (Feb 22, 2012)

keep up the good work, fingers crossed she gets the hang of it.   She may need supplementation for awhile if the boy is pushy and doesn't allow her to nurse well.

best of luck


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## Bridgemoof (Feb 22, 2012)

Okay she's doing okay. But she still needs help getting up into her mom. I got up every 3 hours and made sure she got a good feeding in her. Every time I went in there she was usually huddled in a corner by herself crying.

SO HERE IS MY LATEST CONCERN:

I don't want to interfere too much. This morning the mother started walking away from me when I tried to hold the baby up to nurse. Then when she was standing on the ground the mother pushed her down, pretty hard, and kind of rammed her several times. So either the mom wanted the baby to just lay down and take a rest, she was sore herself, or she's rejecting her because of my interference. I wish we could read their minds! I finally got her under the ewe again and she nursed a bit. The ewe did smell her butt, so I guess that's a good sign.

I don't want to pull her from her mom unless its really critical. But I'm also afraid she could get hurt if the mother decides she wants to reject her. What do you think? Am I being too overly cautious?


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## Remuda1 (Feb 22, 2012)

Maybe someone with more experience will respond, but I don't think the ewe just wanted the lamb to lay down. In my opinion, your actions may be playing a small part in the behavior of the ewe but chances are that she just senses that the lamb is not strong enough and is willing to sacrifice that lamb in order to insure that the robust lamb thrives (survival of the fittest). If it were me, I'd keep doing what you're doing until its obvious that the ewe is a danger to the lamb. The longer she can get nourishment from mom, the better. 

That being said, it wouldn't hurt to have some milk replacer on hand. The ewe that I have that rejected one of her twins (both were robust) allowed both lambs to nurse, cleaned them both up beautifully, and generally just did great with them all afternoon and the evening of thier birth. The next morning, while doing chores I noticed that she was slamming the ram lamb into the bars of the panel.... Sigh, I tried to make her let him nurse but she wouldn't have it. She's not the kind of ewe that would've accepted being in a head gate so I pulled him. 

Others here have had good luck putting the ewe in a head gate. You might try that. It would allow her to eat, drink and lay down and allow the lambs to nurse. Try a search for "head gate sheep" on his site. You might find that it would work for you. 

Keeping my fingers crossed for you


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## Bridgemoof (Feb 22, 2012)

Thank you Remuda! I will search for head gate, and suspect that is what I may want to do. I'll keep you posted.


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## ksalvagno (Feb 22, 2012)

They are too sweet!   Congratulations!


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## Bridgemoof (Feb 22, 2012)

UPDATE:

I pulled the weak lamb from her mom. The mother was getting increasingly aggressive towards her, and walking away when I tried to get her to feed. She rammed her several times and I feared for the safety of the little one. So, now she's in the house and is a BOTTLE Baby! YAY! She's already had two feedings of milk replacement. And her twin is doing just fine with his momma out on the barn. Which means, no having to get up in the middle of the night to go to the barn! I will have to feed her inside, but that's a lot easier!

I'm glad I pulled her, the ewe seemed intent on getting rid of her one way or another.


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## Bridgemoof (Feb 22, 2012)




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## SheepGirl (Feb 22, 2012)

We had a ewe like that. We "forced" her to like her lamb by using a headgate. My neighbor built one in one of the pens in the corner. The ewe goes between the plywood and the first plank. In the corner is hay and a bucket of water. She learned to like her lamb real quick and it only took two or three days. And she didn't fight the lambs when they nursed because she wasn't able to tell which one was her favorite and which one was the one she didn't like.

I'm not sure, but here's my theory on why the ewe cooperates after using the headgate: 1) the lamb starts smelling a lot like her; 2) she forgot she had a lamb that she didn't like/can't tell which one it was that she didn't like.


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## Remuda1 (Feb 22, 2012)

Oh boy, you're in big trouble now!!! Lolol . I kept my bottle babies in the garage in a huge dog crate when I still had to feed in the middle of the night. Trekking to the barn at all hours didn't appeal to me either. I know you'll think I'm crazy, but if you can find a bottle  friend for her, that would be great. I got a little bottle baby ewe for my little guy. Here they are, haha!! This was a couple of weeks ago when it was cold. They stay in the barn overnight in their own pen now. I'm starting to leave them out in the maternity paddock during the day. Today was the longest time from 9 to 5. I just noticed this afternoon that the little ram has started chewing his cud. That is so funny to me to see these little babies acting like grown ups  .


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## Cornish Heritage (Feb 22, 2012)

Yikes! I am a little late to this conversation but thought I would add my ideas in case anyone else has the same "problem." We had triplets born last week, one of which was dead but one ram & one ewe survived. Although the ewe lamb was the biggest for some reason she wasn't the smartest! We noticed on the first day that she wasn't staying close to mom & the next morning we found her sleeping in the damp earth beside the water bowl! DUH! Knew we had to do something. Also the mama had now filled up with so much milk that one side was very full & sore so she was only letting the ram lamb drink on the other side! So for two days, once each morning, we milked the ewe & tube fed the ewe lamb 4 ozs morning & night. On the first day of doing this I was concerned & pretty convinced that we were going to have to bottle feed BUT after the second day she was fine. They are now out in the pasture (she had lambed in the barn) all doing great.

Hope this helps, 

Liz


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## Bridgemoof (Feb 23, 2012)

Thank you everyone, this is all great advice! and thank you for posting the great pictures. Now that I've already brought the baby in, can you tell me what the disadvantages are of raising a lamb on a bottle? I have another batch coming soon, and hopefully will be better prepared. How is the transitioning back to the barn going to go with my bottle baby?

I guess I should check my ewe's teats and make sure they are not too full of milk. Yesterday she seemed quite content with just her one big boy.


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## aggieterpkatie (Feb 23, 2012)

One of my ewes had twins last year and one was half the size of the other. She didn't walk until the next day, so I just put her on the teat a few times to make sure she was getting enough milk.  She eventually did stand (the next day) and was fine after that.  She's still a little smaller than her sister, but she's growing well.  

My thoughts on helping lambs:

1.  Don't tube feed unless you absolutely have to. SOmetimes lambs are stupid and tube feeding them makes it harder for them to remember how to suck.
2. Tie up the ewe or hold her still and put the lamb on the teat whenever possible, instead of milking the ewe and bottling the lamb. It's just easier in the long run if the lamb nurses directly from the ewe.
3.  Leave the lamb and ewe together when possible, unless the ewe is being extremely aggressive.  You can always try tying the ewe so she can get up, lay down, eat, drink, etc but not hurt the lamb.  If she's not being aggressive, just leave them together, even if you do have to tie the ewe and let the lamb feed.
4.  Try not to feed replacer unless you want to continue it.  If the ewe is having a hard time accepting a lamb, feeding replacer will always make it worse because the lamb will start to smell different.

Feeding a lamb replacer isn't the end of the world, but I just prefer to try to get the ewe to feed the lamb unless she absolutely won't...and I'll try a good 2-3 days at least before I give up.  When you bottle feed, make sure to hold the bottle low to the ground and make the lamb crouch for it.  They'll get pot bellies if the bottle is held too high.  

The transition back to the barn may be difficult, unless you have a second bottle lamb.  Single bottle lambs usually don't get accepted by the herd.  Keeping the lamb separate may stress it out. You'll just have to play it by ear.  We've had lambs that we supplement with bottles ,but keep them on their moms (in the case of triplets) and they usually figure out how to scavenge milk from other ewes PLUS their mom, plus get the bottle.


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## Cornish Heritage (Feb 23, 2012)

> The transition back to the barn may be difficult, unless you have a second bottle lamb.


It is best to leave the bottle lamb out with the herd at all times. She will soon come running for a bottle when she knows you are the source. This way she/he will be part of the herd.

We only milked the ewe off halfway when we milked so as not to encourage over production of milk but we had to do it - the one side was SO red, hard & swollen there was no way the lamb could drink & we did not want to risk mastitis setting in. By only doing this once a day & only tube feeding twice a day it encouraged the lamb to drink from mama the rest of the time but the extra milk from us gave her the strength to do so. We tried putting it in a bottle but on that first day the lamb was way too weak.

As has already been stated working with the ewe & lamb is extra work but better in the long run as it will save you time, not to mention that the cost of Lamb Replacer is horrendous!

Liz


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