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Farm dog raises a rejected lamb (Original Post) mahatmakanejeeves Oct 2022 OP
Adorable malaise Oct 2022 #1
Adorable malaise Oct 2022 #2
This is so sweet karin_sj Oct 2022 #3
Some ewes have a habit of rejecting their lambs Farmer-Rick Oct 2022 #4
Since ewes often have multiple births, I wondered... maddiemom Oct 2022 #5

Farmer-Rick

(10,202 posts)
4. Some ewes have a habit of rejecting their lambs
Mon Oct 3, 2022, 10:53 AM
Oct 2022

But I never saw a ewe reject a lamb when they only had one lamb. It usually happens if they have twins or triplets. They kind of forget about the extra lambs or thinks it's another ewe's lamb. They won't feed another ewe's lamb without some trickery from the shephard.

Orphaned lambs are not uncommon. It's a bad situation for most shephards. That means you have to feed the lamb by hand every few hours. If it doesn't get the colostrum, then you got to feed artificial colostrum and protect it from common diseases. Though there are farms that manually feed all lambs routinely.

I actually had a ewe that was close to lambing steal other ewe's newborn lambs. I had to take the lambs back to their real mothers after each lambing. Eventually she stopped stealing lambs after she had her own.

maddiemom

(5,106 posts)
5. Since ewes often have multiple births, I wondered...
Mon Oct 3, 2022, 11:39 AM
Oct 2022

This appeared to be a single lamb. Thanks for clarifying what seemed to have been an unusual situation. Wonderful dog!

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