It’s was straight into the fire this year. No warm up. Just head first into a difficult pull. Everyone lived through the initial delivery... I’m not sure how even now that I have had 48 hours to process it and detailed notes in my health records.
(I am going to digress for a moment.... I love records. It’s taken tweaking over the years and I’ll probably always be modifying and adjusting them but our health records have been one of my most valuable tools)
Anyways.....
Everyone lived through the initial delivery. 48 hours later though we are still dealing with consequences from that. Weak lambs are incredibly frustrating to me. We don’t get many but it’s usually a result from trauma at birth but we have had a lamb that was given perfect conditions and yet still failed to thrive.
This little ewe lamb tonight was given 24 hours of colostrum. It took her 8+ hours to just stand. She had no sucking reflex. Somehow she survived the first 24 hrs and was walking and running and interested in the ewe. We started milking the ewe and feeding the lamb. We even got her to suck from the ewe. Then we took a sharp 180 and are headed in the opposite direction. The little ewe lamb is now in the house and being tube fed every 2 hours. The odds are she won’t make first light. She is having seizures and is star gazing. Hasn’t urinated but is still passing fecal matter. Temps are all normal.
I have learnt so many things to try to assist a weak lamb to be successful and yet the one thing they need the most and the one thing I cannot help them with is A WILL TO LIVE. To want to thrive.
Every time we have a loss on the farm it feels like a personal failure of my own and I think that is the most frustrating thing for me when it comes to the case of weak lambs and failure to thrive.
