Has it just been two days since Snicker’s lambs were born? Or two weeks? Here’s the good news: the lambs, at the moment anyway, are doing well. Here’s the bad news: since I last wrote, Snickers tried her best to kill the ewe lamb, both lambs got diarrhea, both lambs began bawling non-stop as lambs only do when they are not getting enough food, it sounded like the white lamb had pneumonia, my car threatened to break down so we had to drive it into Madison in a snowstorm at rush hour, and then go back in to get it at rush hour later that day.
I should start at the beginning. Having lambs at all in the depth of a Wisconsin winter can only be described as an agricultural whoopsie of major proportions. Our lambs are supposed to come in early April, when it’s warmer and the grass will be lush and green by the time the lambs are ready to leave the barn. It became apparent that this plan had a glitch when I noticed that Truffles and Snickers were, what can only be described as, rotund. Once their bags began to enlarge in December I knew we were in trouble. They were apparently bred by last year’s ram lambs, who couldn’t have been much over 3 months of age. I have never castrated the ram lambs.. it’s stressful on them (okay, me too) and intact ram lambs grow better than neutered ones. I’ve never had a problem with it, just moved the ram lambs away from the ewes in mid-August when the ewes started to cycle and the ram lambs became old enough to breed.
Well, that was then, and this is now. Truffles and Snickers are a new breed for me, 1/2 Katadhan and 1/2 Dorper, each of which is known to breed out of season. Little did I know that they are also shockingly precocious… the ram lambs that bred them (one of their sons no doubt, ouch) couldn’t have been much over 3 months of age. That’s equivalent of an 8 year old boy… well, never mind.
About two weeks ago it became clear that the lambs were coming soon. Truffles seemed to be coming due first, so I kept all the flock in the barn pen, assuming Truffles would have her lambs in a safe place, perhaps in the straw inside the barn where most of my ewes give birth. I came home from a movie (Milk, fantastic) to find a tiny white lamb standing outside in the sleet beside Truffles. I did not say “oh boy.” Truffles has always twinned, and I knew there should have been another lamb. Sure enough, I found a cold, wet body lying outside, a poor little dead lamb who would have been a lovely, beautiful lamb if he had lived. I have no idea what happened… did Truffles just not attend to it fast enough and it died of hypothermia? It seemed to be barely licked off, perhaps she got so busy with the first one that she ignored the second. Jim and I both felt sick about it. It wasn’t a good night. Raising animals teaches you a lot about the inevitability of death, but it still comes hard.
That was a week ago. Here’s the good news on the one that lived: He is huge now, fat and lively. I swear he’s doubled in size. It’s beginning to look like he is an albino. My my. Here he is at the milk bar.
On Thursday, Snicker’s bag filled up and I knew she’d be having her own lambs soon. Luckily I was working at home, and just happened to check the barn my way out to yoga. As I walked in, the little black ewe lamb slid out of Snicker’s onto the hay. Snickers seemed far more interested in the white ram lamb, who was already up and active, so I helped clean off the little ewe lamb while Snickers alternated between the two. When I left the barn they were both up and looking for milk. I came back about an hour and a half later, and found both lambs with warm mouths and milk in their bellies. That’s when I came to Black Earth and sent my last post (dial up at home… urrrrggggggh). When I returned, Snickers was busy smashing the ewe lamb around the pen, rejecting it as if it was an alien.
Since then she accepted the lamb, rejected her, accepted her again, rejected her again and finally, as of last night, decided that both lambs are indeed her lambs. Whew. Jim and I were working on building a ‘crush pen’ (no one is crushed, honest) that basically prevents the ewe from turning and butting away the lamb in hopes she’ll finally accept it. I spent a lot of time smearing the white lamb on the black one, in hopes that the smell would transfer enough so that she’d accept them both. (It’s all about smell if you’re a ewe.) We had also gone early Friday morning in the snow storm to a dear friend and country neighbor, who amazingly enough this time of year, had goat milk. The lamb had clearly, thank god, gotten enough clostrum, but was just as clearly in need of more food than she was getting. She took to the bottle easily, so we were able to start supplementing her yesterday. Good thing too, because last night, the white lamb was bawling his head off…. clearly wasn’t getting enough food. Soon he was joined by a bleating black lamb, and now we had two lambs starving, even though Snickers let them nurse. To cap it off they had a bad case of diarrhea and I didn’t like the way their lungs sounded. What else?
I treated them w/ Vit E and gave them medicine for scours (lamb trots) and we began bottle feeding both of them with goat milk. They need feeding every 3 hours. Suffice to say I didn’t get to bed very early last night.
This morning, glory hallelujah, Snickers was happily offering her bag to both lambs, they both had fat, full bellies and warm mouths. We’re still supplementing them, it seems the smartest thing to do. It’s supposed to get brutally cold, highs zero or lower, 15 below and windy at night. I want the lambs to put on as much weight as they can and develop a layer of fat (newborn lambs are little more than skn and bones… there must be muscle there because they stand up in minutes, but to say its minimal is a understatement.) If we can get enough food in them and get them stabilized they should be okay, but it’s hard not to be a bit concerned. Here are the twins now, trying to get milk out of the bottle by themselves:
One last photo, can’t tell you how good it is to see Snickers accepting this lamb! It is pathetic to watch a lamb only a few hours old being rammed away by its own mother. We are SO happy that Snickers had a change of heart……
Got to go… company for dinner, and time to finish the blueberry/raspberry pie…
Jennifer says
Wouldn’t banding be a simpler solution to the “castration” issue? It’s a slower, more natural process, at least, and probably less stressful.
Holly says
I hope she continues to let them suck. Her milk is by far the best for them, if they don’t continue to scour. However, and my only experience is in cows, we had a heifer that never did accept any of her calves. After the first one, she went to a b-i-l (who neglected to listen to our experiences) he saved the next calf but the next one she managed to kill. He shipped her after that.
Karen says
Fascinating! The lamb mortality rate must be high if they’re often born out of season and the ewe rejects some of them. Seems counter to survival of the species to reject your own lambs when they’re that young. Surely they don’t get really annoying until they’re the equivalent of 2 year-old children? I’ve always suspected that’s why 2 year-old are so incredibly cute – it keeps their parents in the game for a little longer.
ABandMM says
Congratulations on the new baby lambs and on having their mom accept them! Friends of mine raise lambs, and there have been several (over the years) that they had to bottle feed due to rejection by the mom.
Precocious seems to be an understatement; boy lambs siring their own offspring after only three months!?! A tough time of year to find that out. I hope the lambs are able to stay warm, get enough to eat and exercise and overcome the obstacles associated with being “January Children”. I guess there is a reason why “Aries” is a spring sign. :).
TD Yandt says
I’m so sorry things have been so hard, but so glad these wee ones have someone like you who’s willing to go to the moon and back to ensure the best for them. I look forward to reading much more about them as they grow and develop.
Brightest of blessings,
TD Yandt aka DogMa.
Trisha says
Things are going well, both lambs have full, fat bellies every time I check on them now. The weather is a big concern, highs of 5 F today, low around 19 F below tomorrow night. I’ve been supplementing the twins with goat milk to get as much weight on them as possible, but Snickers is providing so much milk now (I feel her constantly!) that the lambs aren’t very interested in the goat millk.
SKIP THIS IF SQUEAMISH! One comment about using a band to castrate (thanks for asking!)…. I’ve tried banding in the past and it appears to be the most painful of all alternatives. I do band their tails, but there is a marked difference in their behavior between banding versus cutting off the tail. (There are many ways to do the latter, I won’t go into too much detail to spare those who’d rather not hear.) Cutting is aversive and sometimes bloody, but the lambs bleat loudly when it occurs, and then run to mom to nurse when you put them down. They shake their tails a few times and subsequently behave as if everything is normal. When they are banded they lay down, extend their heads and neck and act as if they are in great pain for about 20 minutes. When I tried (one year) to use bands to castrate the ram lambs they appeared to be in a lot of pain for a long period of time, and I also found it difficult to do correctly. UC Davis did some research on this, I’l go look it up again, but if I remember correctly they found that cortisol was higher in banded lambs than ones that were done the old fashioned way.
Erehwon Station says
Dorper/Katahdin are still hair sheep and it is well known among the hair sheep community that you must remove little ram lambs from the ewes by 12 weeks or they WILL breed their mothers (and any other receptive ewes). Hair sheep will lamb twice a year. I regularly have ewes lambing every 5 months and 2 weeks. Banding a ram lamb shortly after birth (make sure both testicles are below the band) is simple and pretty easy. Yes they do sort of fall out for about 20 minutes but then they forget about it. You DO NOT have to band tail on hair sheep and it is so nice to see happy sheep wagging their tails. I have a 10 day old ram lamb now that at 4 days started the courtship (licking and dropping head) behavior on his ewe lamb half sisters. Talk about precosious! (By the way he is for sale).