Rearing Orphan Lambs

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 94, Issue 6, 15 June 1957, Page 610

Rearing Orphan Lambs

By

D. W. CALDWELL,

Veterinarian, Department of Agriculture, Hamilton

k JOST sheep farmers are familiar with the problem of mothering ,up a iamb whose *’ 1 mother has died or whose mother cannot feed it owing to udder defects or disease, or a lamb which is a triplet or twin and which is to be put to a ewe which has lost her own lamb. Advice on the best methods to adopt is given here, with instructions for making an artificial colostrum for lambs deprived of the natural colostrum so important for the first days of life.

WHEN any lamb is doing badly an examination should always be made of the ewe’s udder, as this is commonly at fault and the strongest lamb will not live long without food.

Many shepherds have their own particular method of mothering up. The best known are briefly as follows: —

1. When a lamb has died and there is a lamb to be fostered the dead lamb is skinned and the skin fastened over the orphan lamb so that the ewe which has lost the lamb will accept it without question. This acceptance is largely a question of smell, though as the lamb grows older the skin can be taken off without disturbing the relationship now firmly established. This method is excellent, but depends on having the recently dead lamb for skinning.

2. The ewe is tied with a short piece of string to a fence post by a foreleg or the neck so that she has little freedom of movement, and the introduced lamb is held to her for feeding. She is left tied up for a day at least and the lamb is allowed to feed several times.

A quiet “eye” dog is useful in this method, as it can be brought up to within a few yards to hold the attention of the ewe while the lamb is feeding; also the ewe’s protective instinct is aroused by the presence of the dog and she accepts the strange lamb more readily. The neck string must be removed later, or it will cause trouble at shearing time.

3. The ewe is taken to the woolshed and fastened in a small bail alongside the wall with a feeding box in front so that she can be held there for several days during which the lamb can feed freely without the ewe being able to reject it. After a few days the ewe is turned loose and keeps the lamb as her own.

On one large and well-managed fat lamb farm in the Waikato this method is used with good results. Ewes without lambs and motherless lambs are brought into the woolshed in a truck and the mothering up done there by

this method, which is most efficient on a large property where the ground allows a truck to be run round the lambing paddocks to pick up ewes and lambs in need of attention.

Whatever method is used, the shepherd should carry two or more coloured raddles and mark the ewes and introduced lambs in some distinctive way so that each pair can be identified until each ewe accepts the strange lamb. Liquid raddle in plastic bottles is now available for marking and is much more convenient and practical than the older preparations.

Artificial Colostrum Mixture

The most important point is that the newly born lamb must have the colostrum or first milk, or its equivalent, or its chances of survival are very poor. This became very evident during, experimental work at the Department of Agriculture’s Wallaceville Animal Research Station when lambs were removed at birth from their mothers and rearing was attempted by various methods.

Briefly, this happened:—

(a) When lambs were fostered on to ewes which had been in milk for 3 or 4 weeks the lambs failed to put on weight and died after 3 days.

(b) Other lambs were fed cow’s milk, and they also died in about 3 days owing to the formation of large indigestible clots in the stomachs and retention of the foetal dung, which is in the back passage before birth and must be excreted.

(c) Other experimental lambs were fed cow’s milk and then fostered on to ewes in full milk and these died after 7 days. Post-mortem examinations again showed hard, rubbery clots in the stomachs and that the foetal dung had not been passed.

(d) Finally it was decided to make up an artificial colostrum, as the experiment depended on the lambs not receiving their mother’s first milk, and a mixture was prepared with 1 beer bottle of warm cow’s milk, 1 beaten egg, 1 small teaspoon of cod liver oil, and 1 dessertspoon of sugar.

The mixture was fed at about 6oz. a feed four times a day for the first 48 hours, and all lambs so fed put on weight, passed their foetal dung, and thrived when fostered on to ewes in milk.

Where it is desired to continue rearing a lamb on the bottle longer than 48 hours the correct mixture is 4 parts of milk to 1 part of lime-water or water with a dessertspoon of sugar added to each pint. Four feeds a day should be given for the first fortnight, then three feeds a day, and at 1 month old two feeds daily are sufficient. The amounts should be increased gradually as the lamb grows, but the lamb should not be overfed. Very few bottle-fed lambs die of starvation, but many die from overfeeding and at the best suffer from chronic indigestion.

Lesson to be Learnt

The lesson to be learnt from these observations is that a lamb to survive must be given colostrum from a ewe or the artificial colostrum made up as described. A ewe secretes colostrum for 48 hours after lambing and much work will be wasted and many lambs lost if time is spent trying to mother newly born lambs on to ewes which have been in milk for more than 2 days. Some shepherds will look out for and catch a freshly lambed ewe and hold her for a motherless lamb to suckle, but this is unnecessary if the simple mixture described is used, the ingredients for which are to be found on every farm and the making up of which should present no difficulty. Castor oil can be used in place of the cod liver oil in the first bottle.. By the use of this mixture many more lambs will be successfully reared.

New Edition of

“ Primary Production ”

THE Department of Agriculture’s publication “Primary Production in New Zealand” has established a reputation as a particularly useful reference book not only for students from post-primary standard onward but. for financial and mercantile firms who require basic farming information. The fourth (1957) edition of this book has just been published.

Organisation and methods in all the main primary industries are described, and there are comprehensive sections on export and local marketing. Detailed information on the guaranteed prices for dairy produce and of the price-support schemes for wool and meat is included.

“Primary Production in New Zealand” is available from main offices of the Department of Agriculture for 2s. 6d. per copy.