Spring Grove Easter Lambing Visit

Over the Easter holidays, I went to Spring Grove Alpacas to help out with lambing.  Lambing is a very busy time of year for farmers, and we went to help Scott and Naomi look after their sheep and other animals.  First thing in the morning, we fed the other animals, and made lamb milk for the sock lambs.  Then throughout the day we would do a sweep of the sheep field to see if any ewes were in labour, or if any lambs had been born.  This was important so that we could get the lambs into the warm shed as soon as possible, to protect them from the cold, and allow the ewe and lambs to bond.

Sock lambs

There were 9 sock lambs at Spring Grove when we went to work there this Easter.  A sock lamb is a lamb that has been taken away from its mother because:

-          It has been rejected

-          The ewe has triplets and cannot cope with feeding a third, as a ewe has only got 2 teats

-          The mother is dead

If it is being rejected some farmers will put the ewe’s head in a stock to stop her from killing the lamb.  Eventually the ewe will accept the lamb, but that might take up to 3 weeks.  It is important to try to keep the lamb with the ewe because ewe milk is better than fake milk.  The first milk, colostrum, is a thick milk full of antibodies, so this is particularly important.  It can only be absorbed in the first 6 hours of life, so even if the lamb has to be taken away, it should still be brought back regularly for colostrum.

If a lamb is taken away from the ewe it will need shelter, lamlac (a special type of milk) and a heat lamp . The lamb will need to be fed 2 times a day. If it is not feeding you have to insert a tube into the stomach and pour the milk down the tube. You have to make sure the tube it in the stomach and not the lungs, because if the milk went into the lungs the lamb would die.  You can tell the tube is in the right place by:

-          Listening – if you hear breaths, it is in the lungs

-          Looking – if it has gone into the stomach, the tube outside the body will be shorter.

Sock lambs are more friendly than regular lambs as they are more used to humans.  One sock lamb, Peanut, was the smallest triplet and had to be taken away from its mother. It could not go with the other sock lambs as it was too small, so it was kept in the house, in a laundry basket, with a nappy on.  She would climb out of the basket and come to have a cuddle with us.  It was very sweet.