They A Need Little Help

The other night a ewe lambed a set of twins and she did not want her babies. This is our first experience with a mother completely rejecting her lambs. After they were born she would not sniff them or even begin to clean them, she walked away without a second glance. With the below freezing temperatures that night we needed to bring them in the house before their body temperatures dropped too much.

Bixler has always wanted to help with the lambs. When one has to come in he is anxious to help clean, these twins provided him with more than enough opportunity.   

Look at those legs! Finally getting warm and stretching out. Our lambs this year have been leggy.

After the lambs were all dried off and given a bottle of colostrum, we took the babies back out to their mother, hoping she would take them.  After a day it was obvious that she was not going to accept her lambs.  We decided to pull them from their mother and bottle feed them.

We try to avoid bottle lambs.  It is and extra three-times-a-day chore and we prefer babies to be with their mother. However, this situation was unavoidable this year.  Lambing season has officially ended. More updates to come.