Feeding relationship Survival rate and Health to do a good job of feeding newborn lambs

The birth period of a lamb refers to the period within 10 days after the birth of the lamb. Strengthening the feeding of newborn lambs is of great benefit to improve the survival rate and promote the healthy growth and development of lambs in the future.

Artificial feeding of lambs

1. Prevent cold and keep warm: after the lamb is born, wipe off the mucus from the mouth and nose and let the ewe lick the whole body of the lamb. If the ewe does not lick, you can sprinkle some wheat bran or cornmeal on the lamb. The temperature of lambing room should be 8 ℃-10 ℃, and the temperature of lamb house should be above 8 ℃.

2. Lactation of newborn lambs:

The main task of the lamb in its infancy is to make the lamb eat enough colostrum as soon as possible. Colostrum is rich in nutrients, easy to digest and contains more antibodies. Colostrum also has a light diarrhea effect, which can accelerate the meconium excretion of lambs. The lamb that eats enough colostrum is energetic, lively and lovely, and seldom gets sick. There are two ways to feed newborn lambs:

One is free lactation: a well-developed lamb can stand up and breast-feed 20-30 minutes after birth, which is called free lactation after following the ewe to find milk at any time. Free breastfeeding is easier and does not need to be controlled manually. However, because there is no fixed number of times for the lamb to milk, it is not possible to grasp the milk yield of the ewe, and the lamb has long been used to breast-feeding with the ewe, so it is more troublesome to be separated from the ewe later.

The second is the method of artificial lactation: the ewe milk is milked into a bottle or basin and fed to the lamb at a regular, quantitative and fixed temperature, which is called artificial lactation. Although this method is troublesome, it has many advantages, especially for farmers who sell fresh milk. Artificial breastfeeding is divided into bottle feeding and basin feeding. No matter which one is used, the mother and lamb should be separated and raised after delivery.

Bottle feeding method: squeeze out the goat's milk, put it in a clean bottle, then put the rubber nipple into the lamb's mouth and let it suck. This method is easy to master.

Pot feeding method: if you raise more lambs, you can use small pots or flat-bottomed enamel bowls to squeeze the milk inside and let the lambs drink. The speed of this feeding method is faster, and sometimes it is easy to cause indigestion of lambs, so pay attention to the speed when feeding.

3. Points for attention in artificial lactation:

One is to guard against impatience. The lamb can't drink milk at first and needs to be trained to get used to it. Be patient and do not force the lamb to drink hard, otherwise it will choke the milk into the trachea, causing foreign body pneumonia and killing the lamb.

The second is to feed regularly and quantitatively. Daily feeding time, feeding quantity, milk temperature should be relatively constant, do not eat hungry, full meal. The milk temperature should be kept at 38 ℃-42 ℃. If the milk temperature is too low, it will make the lambs dilate after eating. It is best to feed them now. To master the amount of feeding: the daily feeding amount of colostrum is about 1/5 of the body weight of the lamb, which can be increased gradually, from 0. 6-0. 7 kg on the first day to 0. 8-1 kg on the sixth day, 4-5 times a day.

Third, pay attention to hygiene. Milk-feeding bottles, pots, rubber nipples, etc., should be scrubbed and cleaned after each use, and then used after drying. At the same time, it is necessary to keep the sheep house clean and hygienic, prevent dampness, and ensure the healthy growth of lambs.

4. Foster care of lambs:

If the ewe has little milk or the ewe dies, the lamb can be placed in foster care with the nursing mother. Lactating mothers need to find dead lambs or ewes with a large amount of milk production and strong motherhood. Ewes know the lambs by their sense of smell, so during foster care, the breast milk should be applied to the foster lambs at night, or the urine of the lambs should be dabbed on the nose of the nursing mothers, so that the smell can be confused and indistinguishable, and then the lambs are put into the nursing pen for 2-3 days, and the foster care can be successful.