# A Bottle Baby Maybe



## luvmypets (Feb 16, 2016)

We have an opportunity to get two bottle lambs. From my understanding they are both boys, and are both about a week old. So, I have some questions. 

How hard is it to raise a bottle baby? 

How often do the babies need to be fed? 

So the only possible conflict would be where we keep the babies. We could in theory keep them at our barn during the day and bring them back to the house at night. 

Any advice is appreciated, thanks


----------



## Goat Whisperer (Feb 16, 2016)

How often are they getting fed now? The person selling should at least be able to provide some sort of feeding guide.

What would be your plans for them? Would you keep one of them intact? If the answer is yes, I don't think it would be a good fit for you. As you already know Rams can be extremely dangerous, having a bottle baby ram is a BAD idea! 

Bottle babies in general are not very hard, I raised about 20 BB kids last year.


----------



## purplequeenvt (Feb 16, 2016)

Bottle babies can be a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. I'd HIGHLY recommend keeping them at your house for at least the first week (since they are already a week old). Then get them set up with a bucket feeder and keep the bucket full of cold milk all the time. That way they are getting plenty to eat even if you aren't around.

To start with, they should be fed at least twice a day. Amount per feeding depends on what breed/size. A Shetland will eat a lot less than a Suffolk.

When the move to the barn, you need to keep them safe from the other sheep. They either need to be penned completely away from your other sheep OR give them an area that only they can get into. I would keep their milk bucket and some hay and grain in there for them. 

CASTRATE!!! While we have had several bottle fed rams kept as breeding rams with no issues, I would not recommend it to other people. It is a huge risk. It has turned out alright for our farm, BUT that is because we know how to train them from babies so that they don't become an issue.


----------

