Need advice on 3 week old lamb, mom passed away unexpectedly

[sunnyside]

Hello all! New to sheep and I am in absolute love! We recently (about 1 week ago) added a shetland ram, ewe, and baby lamb to our farm. The ewe passed away unexpectedly due to a neighbors dog (entirely another story, husband almost shot him!) which took down the mama. The baby lamb is three weeks old and we are trying to bottle feed him with no luck. Any advice on what we can do? Any help would be much appreciated. I have been reading these forums since it happened last night and am not finding anything. We currently pulled him from the pasture and have him in our sunporch. I am just so terribly upset and not sure what to do! I think he is so used to his mama's milk that bottle feeding at this point may be extremely difficult!

 

[jhm47]

Is he eating any solid foods? Hay? Grain or lamb starter? It might be really hard to get him to start on a bottle, but perhaps if you wait till he's really hungry and put a nipple in his mouth and allow some milk replacer to drip or slowly dribble into him, he may begin to swallow. He might begin to suck after getting a good taste of the milk replacer. If he absolutely won't begin sucking, you could try feeding him a really high quality lamb starter. He should be drinking water by now, so if you can get him started on dry feed (and only give him the highest quality feed and a bit of hay you can find), he might be OK. Good luck, and take care of the dog. He most likely will be back.

 

[sunnyside]

Thanks for the advice jhm. He would nibble on his mothers food (grain) at feeding time but I will go and pick up a high quality starter today. I put the milk replacer in a bowl rather than the bottle as we stayed up with him last night trying to bottle feed but just did not work. I am hoping if he gets hungry enough he will finally take the bottle.

Sad part about the dog is that my neighbor was right there when it happened. He was working on his fences and had his dog in with him. When he took down the shared fence line, the dog went right in and right for Big Mama. I am just sick over it.

One more question if you do not mind. How long should I keep the baby separated from the remainder of the herd? Any thing else I can be doing for him?

Thanks so much again for the advice. It is MUCH appreciated!!!

 

[ThreeBoysChicks]

Will the lamb suck your finger? Not ideal, but growing up if we had one that did not want the bottle, but would suck a finger, we would put our finger in its mouth and then dip their head into a bucket with the milk in it and they would suck and get the milk. THen in a week or so, the finger was out and they were drinking.

Give it a try.

 

[puredelite]

Just keep working with him, not as easy to get a lamb of his age to take a bottle as a new-born but can be done. You may want to try some cow's milk first as the smell/ taste will be closer to ewe's milk. And yes, the lamb is old enough to begin eating some dry feed and nibbling on hay. Neighbor should offer to compensate you for his dog killing your ewe. Good luck with your lamb!

 

[sunnyside]

You guys are the BEST!!! He is finally takingt he bottle!!! YAHOOOO! Not sure what triggered it because I tried everyones suggestions, but he is taking it now. So happy!

A great big hug goes out to all of you!!!!! Thank you so very much!!!

On a side note, these boards are addicting! Filled with so much great info (and pics! I love the pics!) and I am lucky to have found it!!!