Greetings, I am an infrequent visitor at the Countryside site. I hope you will have some suggestions. We have a ewe lamb, a triplet, unknown breeding. Her siblings are full sized-healthy-vigorus...at 6 weeks old she is the size of a new born. We left the 2 regular sized ones with the ewe. The little one we have bottle fed. She is still at 3 ounces of replacer at feedings 4 times a day. She eats hay/creep feed/corn/grass.....we wormed her with Pancor a week ago....she is still messy on the back end. She's had Bose and possibly some other shots. We had to seperate her out from other bum lambs because we thought maybe she was a sucker(she was observed once sucking urine from other lambs). She's not growing. When she was born she was only a backbone wide, small as a miniture poodle. She was born March 31. Nothing special about her birth, mother.....she's just not growing. Any ideas? Thanks, Kathy G.

-- Craig Giddings (ckgidd@netins.net), May 12, 2001

Answers

Guesses of course:

Failure to thrive, due to inadequate intake of colostrum.

Poor quality (soy) milk replacer, chronic bacterial infection, cocci, worms, all associated with stress from milk not coagulating in the gut correctly. Chronic diarrhea which doesn't allow time enough in the intestine for the infant to absorb nutrition. Takes a great deal of calcium to grow bone, this isn't going to come from an infant eating grain and hay. Rumen acidosis, eating of so much grain and hay because of lack of milk, with no bacteria in the rumen to assimilate the grain.

If you logically look at the directions of milk replacers, they are trying to tell you to feed 3 or 4 ounces of milk 2 or 3 times a day. Any ewe at your place who had this limited amount of milk for her lambs would be in the freezer! It is simply a ploy to keep you feeding them such small amounts because the products are so inferior. Vicki (who obviously is not a fan of milk replacer)

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), May 12, 2001.

I do use Land 'o Lake milk replacer, which I think is one of the better ones, or even better, goats milk when I can get it.I would take a fecal sample and have your vet test it. I would suspect that she has coccidiosis which will not be touched by Panacur.My bottle lambs at that age are close to weaning, but take a pint 2-3 times a day.Don't go by the directions on the bag. 12 ounces of milk a day is definetly not enough to supply her water needs, let alone enough nutrition. Offer her more and increase it gradually. You don't want to bloat her. It also sounds like she is dehydrated from the loose stools and trying to drink urine off another lamb. Do you have fresh water available to her? If she is so small, perhaps she is not reaching your water source. Try putting her separate with another of your smaller bottle lambs. The bigger ones could also be getting her share of any grain.Also for loose stools I give a corrective mixture from the vet cotaining sulfa medication or in a pinch I use peptobismal , just 10-15cc.But I think you need to find the source of her loose stools. Hit and miss treatments with whatever wormers are available, are in the long run more expensive than getting a fecal test done and than treating for the specific problem, be it coccidiosis or parasites.

-- Kate henderson (kate@sheepyvalley.com), May 12, 2001.

Kathy, We were given two lambs that were tiny tiny like you explained, like a miniature poodle. Cute but really small. They definitely took longer to grow but they should be taking more milk replacer by now. We have used Purina, Land O Lakes, Save a Lamb, and Advance. We used Advance this year and found it comparable to Purina. Our lambs did wonderfully on it. We bought it at our local Runnings Fleet and Farm. Anyway, I would expect them to be taking at least 6 oz 4 times per day. Also, we raise a lot of bottle lambs given to us by area farmers, plus we have our own flock. Our experience is that that lambs with their mothers grow better than the bottle babies. Are you feeding her bottle before she gets creep feed and hay?? I would so that she gets that milk first. Is her appetite good? Does she really go after the bottle? If not, she may need some Vit. B complex 2cc per 5# under the skin. That would give her appetite a boost if needed. Fresh water should be available to her at all times. Maybe she was a "sucker" and that prevented her from wanting to eat and drink the food/milk she was supposed to eat. If the lamb has runny stools consistently, you should give a tetracycline pill once per day for three days, or you could use Primor but it is more expensive. She also may just be a poor performer. Hang in there and Good Luck. JoAnn

-- JoAnn in SD (jonehls@excite.com), May 12, 2001.

Improper use of antibiotics is one of the main ways that pathogens develop resistance to drugs. Using a low dose of the drugs, or not using them for as long as directed, are among the best ways to create drug resistant strains, because you're killing off only the most susceptible bacteria, leaving those with some resistance to grown and multiply.

Just 10 years ago, when I started raising sheep, penicillin was effective against staph infections, although there were some resistant strains. Today it is not effective. Partly that's because of human misuse of the drug, but it's also due to its misuse in animals.

Every time someone uses this kind of scattergun approach to treating sheep or swine or cattle, you run the risk that the same drug will start to lose its effectiveness as a human therapeutic drug.

Please, before you reach for the antibiotics, know what you're aiming at, and know how to use your weapon.

-- Kate henderson (kate@sheepyvalley.com), May 13, 2001.

Thanks for the responses about our tiny lamb. In a pen of her own, she has fresh water twice a day, plus dry feed(creep or grain)-free choice and hay. We've raised bum lambs for 8 years and she is the first one that has not grown. Some start out tiny-but they usually grow eventually. I know what you are talking about replacer isn't like mom made milk. Thanks for your suggestions/help........Kathy G.

-- Kathy Giddings (ckgidd@netins.net), May 15, 2001.

Mrs. Giddings, We have not personally had experience with sheep, but we do have goats, and have heard some great things about Nutri-Drench. We know of one family in particular who would have lost a baby kid if it were not for the way it worked so fast. It comes in all varieties, for each type of animal, sheep, goat,cow, etc. We found it for a very good price through Jeffers, which has an online ordering catalogue. Hope you find something helpful.

-- Sarah Turner (HopeofIsrael77@hotmail.com), May 16, 2001.