January 2016

Raising lambs

In March 2015 friends who have a large flock of sheep had two lambs that needed to be hand raised.  One was a twin that was removed from the mother so she only had one lamb to feed and the other was an orphan.

I bought them both and they came home with us when they were 2 weeks old.

Lambs are soooo cute, really really cute...and really really demanding as all babies are.  I don't know what I was thinking at the time as I had my almost 2 year old son, his then 5 month old brother and 1.5 horses to care for.  

We named the little female Esme and the boy Rob Roy.

They've grown so much and are such a hoot - they run around with my 2 year old playing and bouncing on all four legs up in the air. Very athletic.  

We're suppose to ahem...eat Rob Roy when he is 18 months old...I'm not sure how I'll go with this as I do feel quite attached to the little guys.  Even though they drive me nuts when trying to get through gates or when trying to feed horses...they always seem to do the exact opposite of what I need them to do. But then they come up for cuddles and stand there while I stroke their soft faces...so sweet.

I had some issues early on with Esme, she would bloat up badly even though I used a proper lamb bottle and formula for feeding. She became very sick with bloat and was falling over. It was quite frightening I thought we were going to lose her. I called a vet out as losing a baby that I had been feeding every 3 hours for 3 weeks in such an awful painful way (their stomach explodes) was too much for me to handle. $180 later I had a well lamb thank the gods.

However, she was still susceptible so I found a home remedy (thank you internet) that would relieve the bloat.  I mixed bi carb soda with vegetable oil and syringed it down their throats after every bottle feed.  

I weaned 3 weeks after the vet visit to try and decrease gas issues from them drinking formula.  They would have been about 10 weeks old when I weaned them. That's earlier than some recommend but with the bloat issues I didn't want to chance it. I also stopped feeding them creep (grain starter) just in case that was contributing to the bloat. By 10 weeks they were grazing well.

Over the next few months their stomachs have decreased in size (gas) as they have grown bigger and gotten used to natural diet of grass, leaves and whatever else is growing in the paddock.  They also get a couple of scoops of oaten chaff and some pellets each day to provide vitamins and minerals and keep them tame and well handled.

Ahhh ruminants, I might try my hand at keeping cows one day...

My lamb raising notes:

•     Highly recommend using a proper lamb starter formula and lamb bottle to reduce intake of air.

•     Keep bicarb, oil and syringes on hand and administer at first sign of excessive stomach bloating. I used 20 ml vegetable oil to 1 tablespoon of bicarb, mixed them together then syringed.  Can administer multiple times a day if needed.

•     Feed smaller amounts more often (the bag of lamb starter instructed to give large feeds but after the bloating issues I broke them down into smaller feeds more often).

•     Used and recommend De-scour as they both got scours when went onto the lamb starter.

•     Use warm soapy water to wash their cute little bums and tails.

•     I housed them in a garage at night in a 3 x 3 metre area with raised pallet bed lined with thick cardboard and 4 inches of sawdust bedding that was changed every 3 days or whenever it needed to be. If there's a next time I'll have them closer to the house to make feeding easier.