I am not saying here that this is the correct or right way to bring up a lamb in a house but it is what we are doing in our situation.
The reason I have decided to write about our highs and lows is because there are lots of pitfalls and advice, but I found a lot of it to be ‘not quite enough’ or ‘that’s not our situation’. I guess what I’m saying is, common sense and the gut feeling is what is working for us along side advice from friends and vets who have been through this.
As you all know, it started with me finding a ewe lamb sitting beside our wether ‘Sugar’ who passed away during the storm of Tuesday last week. How the lamb got to be there is a guess on my part; either her mother rejected her at the outset (which I sort of disregard because the lamb was dry from afterbirth) or (more likely) that the mother ran off to the barn at the start of the storm – with one lamb but not realising she had two. The storm was very fast, wet, cold and sudden and was over in an hour.
When I found the lamb, I immediately tried to return it to its mum, but as I now realise, the lamb (Ema) would have had; 1) my scent – from picking her up and 2) probably Sugar’s scent from Ema lying next to him for about an hour. So it is not surprising that Ema was rejected. I did try to wrap Ema in the wool from mum (Nickel) but I think it was too late and after the fact.
Anyway from that time on I realised that Ema was going to be a house-raised lamb. From the first initial bottle of colostrum both Leigh and I realised that we were now in for the long haul. Bottles to be washed, sterilised and feeds to be done at regular intervals through out the next XXX days until she is weaned.
You will also have read about Ema’s pneumonia (here), but what I have since learnt is that this could have been caused in several ways. 1) from the storm, 2) from her lying next to “Sugar” who died of pneumonia, or 3) from drinking from the bottle too fast and milk getting into her lungs (a very common result for bottle fed lambs). Since the latter was something that I took on very seriously, we changed the way we feed Ema; we use a teat with a very small hole, give her lots of breaks in her drinking (to simulate mama) and to hold the bottle so that Ema has to kneel to drink (her back is arched). Ema has recovered from the pneumonia and the cough that she had so we hope we are on the right track with her feeding process.
I also wanted to replicate Ema’s natural environment as much as possible, so on the first day we set up our house garage with a surround of hay and peastraw and hay on the ground to soak up ‘stuff’ (I didn’t want to use ‘nappies’) and a bean chair for ‘human’ to sit in with Ema. That worked well as Ema didn’t move much from the human’s side (Leigh or me). After that it was necessary to think long term as to how we would keep her in the garage and confined so we brought in the hurdles (movable and stable fencing) and put them up in the garage to make a pen. This is still working, and we are now finding that Ema has associated the ‘pen’ to her home. She is quite happy to stay in the pen even if we are not there with her; she settles down without the baa-ing if she is fed and tired.
The other part that we/I am doing (because Ema has imprinted that I am Mama) is to take her out to the paddock when I feed the flock sheep nuts in the morning and in the evening. I have also just sat in the paddock with Ema and read my book or taken photos. Ema has started to venture over to the flock and interact with the lambs and the mothers. Of course the mamas push her aside but she is a courageous little girl and will go back time and again to ‘talk’ with the other sheep.
I am very impressed with her independence in that she goes off by herself to explore the paddock, mingle with the other lambs and generally play. I haven’t left her by herself yet because I am worried about the ‘head-butting’ of the mamas. Ema is prepared to stand her ground though and it wont be long before she is big enough to fend off the butting.
The feeds are now down to four per day and she is taking approximately 300 ml of milk at a time.
This is our routine for now; it won’t be long before this is all over and I/we will look back on this as a part of our farm life. Even if things still go wrong I know that I have given Ema the best chance and now it is up to ‘nature’.
Nice chatting with you even if it is one sided.
Hope you enjoy the blogs… see you all again soon. Maybe Nico will put his stamp on this ‘lambing’ business.
silva kurls 