Sheep - AgRIS

9.2.2 Lambs
Efforts should be made to have maximum care for optimum growth during early period of
life of lamb.
Proper suckling by the young should be ensured. The growth of the lamb starts actually
from the time of conception itself. This indicates that for effective lamb management and for
reducing the lamb losses care of ewe should start fxom the time of conception till the lambs are
weaned. If reasonably well fed, ewe will form her lamb out of the feed she gets, but if she is
half starved, she sacrifices her body weight to form the lamb. In younger ewes that are still
growing, this sacrifice is not so natural nor so easily made and it is possible that either the lamb
or the ewe may suffer. Udder of the ewe should be examined for blindness of teats and mastitis.
The orphan and disowned lambs should be artificially fed on milk or foster moth ers.
The most critical period in the life of lamb is during first 48 hours of life. Immediately
aRer birth the naval card should be pinched 4" from the body. It should be painted with Tincher
Iodine to avoid possibility of any infection. In the normal lambing, the mother usually cleans
the lamb by licking. However, in the case of dystokia or poor mothering ability all mucous
should be removed from around the mouth and then the lamb should be kept near the head
ofthe ewe so that the ewe cleans up the lamb. The mucus from the lamb's body is applied on the
nose of the ewe. This helps in owning the lamb. When the ewe owes the lamb, he should be left
to her. The lambs and mothers should stay together for at least 72 hours in the indi vidual pens.
A healthy lamb would stand within 5 to 10 minutes of birth and start suckling between 10 to 20
minutes, at the most within one hour. A week lamb needs assistance. Teat of the ewe should be
put in the lambs mouth and milk should be stripped. This would enable to know if there are any
plugged teats. Care should be taken to clean the udder to prevent infection. Colostrum is
essential for cleaning the bowels and provides passive immunity. Through the colostrum lamb
gets the antibodies which prevent the lambs from early infection as well as constipation. In the
case of constipation, it would be better to give castor oiVparaffin. If pinning is there, it would
be better to remove manually. If colostrum is not available, then the lamb is fed with warm
milk containing castor oil/paraffin. The milk yield and mothering ability of the ewe should be
determined by exatnining udder and from the interest shown by the ewe in her lamb and in case
of poor milk yiled/poor mothering ability, the lamb should be given supplementary milk
feeding as per the following schedule.
Warmmilk with cod-liveral atthe rate l/l0th ofthe bodyweight.
First fortnight - 6 times a day
Second fortnight - 4 times a day
upto 3 months - Twice a day
The following steps may be taken for increasing survivality of lambs and their better
growth.
1) Ensure proper suckling of lambs. Examine udders for blindness of teats or mastitis.
2) Take care of indifferent mothers and arrange suckling of lambs by restraining such type of
ewes.
3) Provide creep feed mixture to suckling lambs in addition to suckling of milk from 10th
day to weaning stage.
4) Make available green leguniinous grasses to lambs to nibble at during suckling period.
5) Perform lamb marking operation when lambs are between 24 weeks old.
6) Lamb marking embraces ear tagging/tattooing, tail docking and castration of male lambs
if to be done at all.
7) Lamb marking site/place should be perfectly dry, clean and hygienic so as to minimise the
risks of losses from tetanus, profused bleeding and blood poisoning.
8) Use sterilized clean knife and resort to proper ligation and antiseptic dressing to the
needed lambs for tail docking operation.
9) Elastrator rubber band methods of tail docking and castration are very handy.
10) Tatooing forceps and ear-tagging forceps should be clean and sterilized at the time of use.
9. 2.3 Pregnant, parturient and lactahng ewes
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