[Jacob-list] How much to feed bottle-fed lambs?

[Trish Berger]

I raised my third and 4th bottle fed lambs (twins) this year--not too bad in 19 years but I would just as soon let the ewe do it.  Weaning at 30 days seemed like a great idea to me. Fortunately, my lambs got colostrum from the ewe before I had to take over.  The first was raised on goat milk because the price was right; the next on Tractor Supply lamb milk replacer and this year I used primarily Lamb-lac produced by Calva Products.  I noted that their kid replacer seemed to be diluted more than their lamb replacer.  I followed the instructions on the milk replacer as to quantity carefully the first time and was a little more generous this year but I also got my son to do one daytime feeding and was doing three other feedings within what I could handle and still try to do my real job well (which did not include getting up at 2 AM, 10 PM was it and was happy when it went to 3 feedings a day rather than 4).  I assumed that it was important not to try
 again with replacer left in the bottle since it's a perfect place for bacteria to multiply and at the end when I was going to 2 bottles a day, didn't seem like that would be a possibility as I was trying to convince them that lush pasture was better than milk.

Trish
 
--- On Mon, 4/4/11, Carl Fosbrink <fourhornfarm at frontier.com> wrote:

From: Carl Fosbrink <fourhornfarm at frontier.com>
Subject: Re: [Jacob-list] How much to feed bottle-fed lambs?
To: "Jason Anders" <rockytopjacobs at att.net>, jacob-list at jacobsheep.com
Date: Monday, April 4, 2011, 6:10 AM



 
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I am not sure how runny you are talking about. It 
is not unusual for the stools to be soft and yellow in color at a week old. They 
won't get solid until they are eating solid food. They should be able to eat as 
much as they wish about 4 times a day at this age. I would recommend a lamb milk 
replacer instead of goat milk replacer or even whole cows milk as real milk 
seems to be better than the replacer. Maybe you could find a dairy farmer in 
your area who would sell you milk for the lambs. Real goat's milk would be good 
too, but harder to find and probably more expensive than cow's 
milk.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: 
  Jason 
  Anders 
  To: jacob-list at jacobsheep.com 
  Sent: Monday, April 04, 2011 8:07 
AM
  Subject: [Jacob-list] How much to feed 
  bottle-fed lambs?
  

  
  Good Morning:
   
  One week ago we had two lambs born that were rejected by their 
  mother.  It seems that she didn't have enough milk and by the time we 
  found them, they had gone probably 5-6 hours without feeding.  We feed 
  them colostrum and kept them going.  We are now feeding a kid goat milk 
  replacer recommended by our vet but are having a hard time knowing how much to 
  feed them.  They are having runny stools although seem to be doing 
  OK.  We are feeding about 4 ounces every 6 hours and also giving them 
  some anti-diarrheal medicine.  Any advice out there would be very much 
  appreciated.  We have never had to bottle feed before.  Thanks so 
  much!
  
  

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