We had a really long night with Eleanor’s little ones.
Eleanor had her lambs on Wednesday night. When Matt went out for the midnight feeding, he called me right away to let me know that two little white lambs were staggering around the barn. We penned them up and fed Eleanor, but the lambs were losing energy quickly. It’s fairly easy to detect failing lambs: droopy heads, slow blinking, loss of ability to stand. The ewe lamb was looking okay, but the boy gradually started looking poorly. We brought both lambs into the house.
Rapidly, the boy started looking very pekid. His eyes closed and he looked very ill indeed. We wrapped him in a heating pad and I got out the tubing supplies. Knowing how to tube a lamb is a real confidence booster. I wouldn’t say I wasn’t worried about this little guy going down hill, but as soon as he started moving and getting antsy again, I knew I could get some sustenance down the hatch. I fed him some colostrum from his mother along with some milk replacer. A few ounces in, and he was ready to sleep it off. I kept him on by tummy, heating pad on low. Meanwhile, his sister had taken several ounces from a bottle with no trouble, and she was soon ready to go back to Mom. Out she went, and we saw her successfully nursing on the lamb-cam soon after. Phew!
Around 3am, the little boy was finally up and at-’em, so out he went to be a sheep once again. He brightened a little more every day, and he’s looking just fine now.
Where did you learn to tube feed? Wish I’d been taught that in England!
And what do you use as your barn camera? What’s your set-up?