LAMBING TIPS FOR BEGINNERS (How to Raise a Small Flock of Sheep)

Hi friends,

I have learned that a successful lambing season starts long before the lamb ever hits the ground.  If you find yourself scrambling during lambing, there is a good chance the groundwork needed to happen months and weeks earlier.

In this episode, I am walking through how to prepare your ewe in the weeks leading up to lambing, what normal labor looks like, and how to recognize and assist with the most common malpresentations I have encountered on my own farm. I am also sharing why colostrum is so critical in those first 24 hours, and how I tube feed a lamb that needs a little extra help.

For the beginner shepherd heading into their first lambing season, my hope is that this episode helps you approach this exciting experience with confidence and preparation.

-the Shepherdess

TRANSCRIPT

the Shepherdess All right, guys. I am so excited because tonight the theme is lambing. Lambing for beginners. We’re primarily going to be talking about how to prepare your ewe for lambing—a lot of lambing stuff takes place before the lamb is even born—and then I’m going to be walking you through the lambing process. I’m also going to be walking you through your first 24 hours, which are critical for getting your lamb up and on its feet for a lifetime of success. So that is the theme tonight, and tonight is actually a very small snippet of an entire, probably one of my most popular paid courses, which is Raising Sheep 101. What that course does is it takes you all the way through eight months. I can’t do that here in one hour, but I’m going to be packing tonight tight with lambing for beginners, guys. So buckle up, get your notes out, and we will get started. 

I’m going to be walking you through lambing, and a lot of these things that I am getting ready to walk you through are things that really well experienced shepherds will know, but as beginners we didn’t know. We had a lot of losses in our first couple lambing seasons, and so what I’m going to be walking you through tonight is just some basics on prepping your ewe for a successful lambing. I’m going to be walking you through the lambing process. I’ve even got my little stuffed lamb here. We’re going to be walking through some common malpresentations in terms of when you get there to lamb them out, and then we’re going to be working through a couple of different supplies that are important and helpful or not. 

If you’re a beginner shepherd on 30 acres or less, then I wrote a book for you: The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. Available at Shepherdess.com with free shipping. Raising sheep on pasture requires a basic understanding of pasture management, breeding and lambing, and mitigation methods for common disease. I walk the beginner shepherd through each aspect, sharing through this book vivid pictures, easy-to-follow instructions, and personalized stories from my own journey with sheep. Available with free shipping at Shepherdess.com; you’ll find a direct link in the description. 

The eight-month milestone and setting farm expectations

So let’s go ahead and run into the slides tonight, and as a reminder, this is just a small section of a very large paid course that I have. If you’re watching this on replay, you can go to the YouTube description and you’ll see that link for you as well. But the whole premise of tonight and the Raising Sheep 101 is from something that a really well-experienced sheep friend told me. Her name was Roberta and you actually can find her full-length farm tour on my primary channel. It’s Raising 300 Hair Sheep in Louisiana. But she told me something that resonated and it has ended up being very, very true for me, and that is, “If you can get your lamb to eight months, you will have a lamb for life.” A lot of the challenges that you will experience in sheep farming, they’re going to come in the first eight months of that sheep’s life. And if you get that sheep over that eight month hump, in so far as we’ve experienced at least, it’s much easier going from there. So that is really what I focus on in the Raising Sheep 101. And tonight we’re going to be talking about the most critical time period for a sheep farmer and that is lambing in the first 24 hours. 

As a disclaimer, guys, I am not a veterinarian, and I will not be liable for anything bad that happens to your sheep. Always take my information to your veterinarian before employing it on your sheep farm because I am not a professional. But I will be shouting out some supplies and some resources that work great for me. So keep that in mind—seek veterinary help before feeding or providing your sheep with anything at all. I also want to give you some context for this information. This information is coming at you in the context of pasture based. And when you choose pasture, especially a great rotational-grazing system over confinement housing, you’re going to immediately elevate the health of your operation overall. Practice rotational grazing. Move your sheep to fresh pasture at least once a week to mitigate losses. Now, I like to speak from experience—bad experiences and good experiences. This year I have been very, very slack with my rotational-grazing program, and I have not kept up with that once-a-week rotation, and my losses have been more. So guys, keep that in mind—that this rotational-grazing program is absolutely critical for keeping your losses down overall. A healthy system overall is going to keep the emergency interventions way, way down. And I can say that from having done it perfectly in certain years and having done it imperfectly in others, and experiencing and seeing the losses go up and down as a result of my management in grazing overall. 

Another thing, this is just as we’re hyping… We’re pep-talking as we get into this presentation, but also it’s a lot of context here, and it’s something I like to say to people a lot. The bottom line is, it’s your farm, okay? I speak to people who… Well, I can resonate with them because I was there six years ago. I was just soaking in all of the expert advice. I was taking all of the expert advice, and I was looking for formulas, and I was looking at exact patterns that I could follow for my own farm. But ultimately, I had to come to the realization that while it’s really important to get good counsel and take expert advice, you’re going to hit seasons and slumps where your critical thinking skills are going to outperform professional advice anytime. And there’s no need to apologize if your farm requires practices or inputs that differ from others. Set your course, figure out what you’re good with— whether it’s dewormers or you never want to deworm—set your course, make adjustments according to what kind of system that you want to input overall, but don’t feel bad if you have to make those adjustments. 

Another one is that animals are going to die. This was hard for me to swallow because I got into the farming systems and I got into the rotational grazing and the regenerative systems, and I did still face losses occasionally. The goal, guys, is to cut losses. You’re never going to eliminate them. In fact, the industry average death rate at lambing, it’s 15%. So if your flock gives birth to 30 lambs, it would be considered normal if five died before weaning. So keep that in mind and give yourself a break if and when you do experience some losses. They’re always going to be hard, but it doesn’t mean game over. So just really keep that in context here. 

Pre-lambing nutrition, minerals, and deworming

All right, so as we go into the pre-lambing section, the important thing to know is that a successful lambing season really starts way back when you breed your ewe. So the entire five months of gestation—which is the gestation period of sheep and goats, five months—you need to be focusing on good feed, good minerals, and making sure that the parasite loads in those animals are down, especially two weeks prior to lambing. Consider deworming. You also, one week before lambing, need to do an udder evaluation, and I’ll be talking you through some of those processes upcoming. But first and foremost, good feed. When you are grazing your sheep on green pasture, it really allows them to create a diet that will meet their nutritional needs. Now, over winter, when pasture access is not available, if you have a quality hay, that is enough for most sheep. And when I say quality hay, I would say Bermuda grass hay. I do mostly Bermuda, and Coastal is what is available up here. And then also I will mix in some alfalfa hay as well simply because I have a supplier where the alfalfa is actually equal in price to the grass hay, and my ewes perform really well on that. 

But over winter, those are the things you need to consider, just making sure they have access to a really good-quality hay with a high protein percentage, I would say, at about 10%. And then, if you do notice body condition going downhill—and you’re going to find body condition in that… Well, it’s in The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. I’ll pull up a picture here in a minute—but body condition going downhill is indicated by just sharp, thin hips, bones visible at the rear end. Maybe their belly’s going to be huge, but you’re going to just notice bones sticking out at the back end. That’s body condition going downhill. In such cases, it is okay to provide them with about three-quarters of a pound to one and a half pounds per day of either grain or alfalfa pellet supplements until that ewe recovers its body condition. And the important thing to know here as we discuss body condition is the reality that you want to get that condition back up before the lamb is born. Otherwise, it’s going to be really, really difficult to catch up, and you might end up with a bottle lamb. 

And what I’m going to do here really quickly is I’m going to go ahead and find inside The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. This is the hard copy book, but this is essentially an indication of good versus bad body condition. So the top one you can pretty easily identify that she’s got bones sticking out, and the bottom one is nice and fluffy, essentially. So in The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture, you’re actually going to have visual examples of body condition. But you want to make sure that your pregnant ewe is in good condition before giving birth to those lambs because once she’s given birth, she’s only finished half the job—she’s got to then feed those babies. And you want to make sure that you’re giving her the best chance to feed those babies because not only is it nice to have a real mom, but orphan lambs are also very expensive to feed. So make sure you’re putting in that ounce of prevention because the pound of cure gets really expensive. Just take it from me. I’ve had a bottle lamb or two. 

All right, I mentioned good minerals and what are good minerals? I’m going to say make sure your mineral has a minimum of 60 parts per million (ppm) of selenium in it. And that is a big mistake that a lot of sheep farmers make is using minerals that do not have enough selenium, and that was our mistake in our first couple of years. We used just the general tractor supply mineral. It had 10 ppm of selenium, had my first lambing season, it was a mess, and realized all of the symptoms I was dealing with were selenium deficiency. So I recommend Redmond Sheep Mineral. That is a great mineral in terms of selenium content and my animals have performed really well on it. Purina also has a really good quality sheep mineral mix that may be more available locally. So just keep that in mind. But again, just make sure that the selenium content is up. And do choose a mineral feeder that will keep it dry and accessible to the pregnant ewes at all times. Good mineral intake—I cannot stress it enough in terms of preparing your ewe for a successful lambing. That is disaster prevention and don’t overlook it. 

Deworming. It’s really important to make sure that the parasite loads in your sheep are down as she approaches the lambing season. And the reason for this is that your ewe’s immune system hits an all -time low after she’s given birth to that lamb. If she goes into lambing with a heavy parasite load, her health is quickly going to deteriorate. And you’re probably going to be encountering poor milk quality, and the lamb itself is going to suffer. So personally, two weeks prior to lambing, I will inspect and deworm my ewes as needed. And two weeks after, I will run another inspection and deworm them as needed, and these are sort of the two non-negotiable inspection periods for me. If you live in a dry area, you may be able to skip one or the other, but likely not both. And when I say inspection, I am inspecting the FAMACHA score of the animal, which is basically the color of the eyelids, because what you’re watching for is anemia. And a high parasite load is going to cause anemia because the barber’s pole worm specifically is basically like a miniature vampire inside of your sheep, and it sucks the blood out. And that’s why it presents the biggest risk at lambing for those ewes because there’s a lot of blood loss as she’s given birth, so she’s already compromised in terms of the red blood cell count. So she’s got the mini vampires, and she’s just given birth to a lamb, and she’s lost blood through that. I mean, it’s just an absolute recipe for disaster if she’s got a high parasite load. 

A recommended dewormer is the Levamed, or Prohibit is sometimes the brand name. That’s a white dewormer. When you do deworm, make sure that you absolutely ignore the package rate. In fact, double the package rate. The dosage rate on the package needs to be doubled as a means of treatment, and that is in part due to some resistance issues, but also because the dosage rate of the back of the package is a maintenance deworming and not a treatment. And again, take it from us—just double that dosage rate and deworm your ewes with it. In fact, I was talking to a veterinarian, and she said that the vet-approved dewormers are safe up to three times the package rate. So when we initially started giving double doses, we were like, “We’re going to kill our sheep! We’re going to kill our sheep!” And she said, “No. RX, which means prescription or vet-approved dewormers, have to be tested in a lab and safe at up to three times the dosage rate.” So you’re not going to kill your sheep, according to that veterinarian, by doubling the dosage, but you might kill her by underdosing. And the reason is that you’re going to leave a lot of worms inside of her, and then those worms are going to be even more resistant to future efforts to deworm. So take it from me, a little bit of an extra tip there—double the dosage rate, make sure you’re checking your ewes for parasites and deworming at lambing. 

But Timothy has a question connected to minerals, and he says, “I’ve seen that a shepherd was setting out different kinds of minerals, and the sheep would eat what they needed.” That’s a buffet-style mineral feeder, and that is very effective for a lot of people, but it’s a bit high-maintenance for me. I have a really good mineral that I love, Redmond Sheep Mineral, like I just mentioned. I keep it in a really nice covered mineral feeder, and they only need one. A caveat to that is that at lambing time, I will sometimes add maybe a handful of lime. It’s powdered lime. I’ll do that for calcium. And I’ll add a handful of powdered lime to their mineral salts at lambing time, and that elevates the calcium content of the mineral. Another pro tip—again, this is just something that I’ve done that’s worked super, super well—I will add that handful of lime to the mineral salts for the calcium, and then I will cheat and add about a handful of dried distillers grains. So it’s like a spoonful of sugar. And I’ll do that about two or three weeks prior to lambing. And what that does is it makes them consume more of the minerals and calcium right as they’re making all the milk to support their lambs, and it’s this perfect timing tip. So you just kind of got a little bit of an extra tip there, but that’s what I do—a handful of powdered lime and a handful of dried distillers grains mixed into that Redmond Sheep Mineral already, and that’s kind of my pre-lambing bonus mix. So there you go. Baca says, “Do you use the agricultural lime to elevate calcium intake?” And the answer is yes. Yeah, agricultural lime. Okay. Let’s get back to the slides. That was some bonus material, but it’s worked really well for me. 

So as we’re talking and doubling back to deworming, this is an example of an eyelid. Especially if the ewe is getting ready to deliver a lamb, I would 100% deworm her. She’s very pale. She needs a dewormer, or else you’re likely going to lose either her or her milk supply at lambing. When it comes to choosing a dewormer option, there are three dewormer options that are generally effective. I would say the third one, being Valbazen, is generally not effective unless you live in a much drier climate. But essentially, Prohibit is the dewormer that I recommend the most. It is the Levamed, and it’s a white dewormer. You’re going to get it in the powder and once again, mix it up at double concentration from what you find on the back. That’s the one I highly recommend. Cydectin is very effective in most regions for sheep. I reserve it for special occasions when maybe my regular dewormer is not working. I will shoot them with that wormer that is working. So Cydectin—save it for when the Prohibit’s not effective. Valbazen is generally ineffective against the barber’s poleworm. But if you have things like tapeworm, the Valbazen is going to be of great efficacy for you. So I use Valbazen for tapeworms. If it’s a bad season, a wet season, and my lambs have tapeworms, I’ll use the Valbazen for that, but I don’t rely on it as effective for the barber’s poleworm, so keep that in mind. Those are your three options, and those are kind of some tips associated with them. 

Monitoring udder health and managing mastitis

All right, so an udder evaluation. So you guys, I mentioned the four different things that you want to watch for going into lambing, and one is an udder evaluation. So an udder check—it’s going to help you catch any problems before the lambs arrive. Catching a bad udder before the ewe lambs is going to allow you to troubleshoot before that issue becomes life-threatening for the new lamb. So I’m going to give you a picture here from the book, The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. But essentially, I’m going to verbally explain it for you here: a good udder is going to… Both sides are going to be the same size. A sheep has two sides, obviously, and two nozzles for the lamb. So you want to see both are very, very good size. You want the udder to be nice and soft and light pink. Anything red or inflamed or hard is an immediate red flag, and you need to get in there and check it out. You can see this bad udder right here—she’s lopsided, she’s a bit lumpy, she is red and inflamed. I would get in very, very quickly and check it out, especially if that’s something you’re looking at before the lamb is even born. This udder right here—this was just a few hours before she gave birth to her lamb. That’s a very healthy situation. Both sides are very well proportioned, she’s light pink, very soft, and no hardness or lumps at all. 

But you want to just put your eyes on the udders and make sure everything’s looking good down there because once the lamb is born, its first job and most important job is to get up and start sucking from a healthy udder. So you want to make sure that going into lambing, your ewes already have what it takes to support that lamb. So if you do pick up on something like mastitis, you have a couple of options. So if the mastitis is mild—if it’s lumpy, but there’s really no feverish feel or discoloration—just wait. Wait until that ewe gives birth to address potential issues, but keep your eye on her, and make sure her lamb is getting up and eating. If the mastitis is super, super bad—say it’s red, it’s hot, it’s lumpy all over, there’s discoloration—it is advisable at that point to run an antibiotic on the ewe, and this is going to subdue any inflammation and infection before the lamb arrives. Now, extreme mastitis like this before a lamb is born is more rare, but it has happened on my farm once or twice, and I have run that antibiotic before the lamb was born, and it has mitigated problems. So keep that in mind. But it’s absolutely fine to run that prior. 

So if the mastitis is more mild, if it’s a matter of there are some lumps and there may be a little bit of inflammation, simply wait until the lamb is born to address the issue. But again, watch really closely, and once that lamb is born, get in there and make sure that the milk is flowing through the teats, okay? Do a little of a hand milking, make sure there’s a nice, strong squirt and stream, and that that mastitis has not clogged those teats so the ewe is able to feed her young. You want to make sure that on both sides there is flow. Because again, we had a lot of lamb losses in our very early years just through not catching a case of mastitis on a ewe prior to lambing. If it’s mild enough, just check, but the vigorous nursing of the lamb should really get things flowing. Just again, if you have any suspicions at all, once that lamb is born, make sure you’ve checked for flow. Allie asks a great question connected to mastitis and connected to lambing. She says, “If your sheep has mastitis, do you cull them?” The answer is yes. One of my top three reasons to cull a sheep is any udder insufficiency. That’s not a pun, but udder insufficiency is going to be what I cull a sheep for in my top three things to cull. However, Allie, a caveat is that I will let her raise her lambs so long as she has resumed adequate milk production. She’ll just get a little bit of a notch or something that tells me she’s one to go, but I’ll make sure that she can feed her lambs out first and wean them. 

And a thing and a reason why you want to cull ewes with mastitis is that once they get it once, it can become a very recurrent situation. She’s much more susceptible to it. So it’s a bacteria that she’s just more susceptible to. The second reason that you want to cull a ewe with mastitis is that when a lamb is suckling, that bacteria is coming through the milk and into its mouth. If that mom is not making enough milk because of the mastitis, that hungry lamb is going to go from her, and it’s going to start stealing from other moms. It’s going to start nursing off of the other ewes in your flock to fill its empty belly. And that bacteria that was in its mouth from sucking on its mom’s milk with mastitis is transferred to another ewe. And you’re going to notice that your cases of mastitis will go through the roof if you do not cull it mercilessly because those hungry lambs will pass it from one mom to the next, to the next. It’s a bacteria that resides in their mouths. So keep that very, very much in mind. Eric asks, “What about Ivermectin for worms?” Eric, Ivermectin for the barbers poleworm in my region is largely ineffective. So it’s one of those ineffective, high-resistance dewormers that is not good to use. 

The lambing process and correcting malpresentations

All right, so we’re going to go ahead and transition into lambing. When and how to assist a ewe in labor. And I’ve got my little lamb stuffy here. We’re going to be walking through some common malpresentations, and how to assist a ewe in labor. But I’m going to first walk you through normal sheep labor. A lamb should be delivered within three to four hours from first signs of labor. So early labor involves that first one to two hours. The ewe is not going to be chewing her cud. She’ll probably be pawing at the ground in an isolated spot. She’s going to be laying down, standing up, and repeating to manage those contractions, and that’s going to be happening from about one to two hours. That’s generally what I will notice with my sheep. Active labor is about one hour, and this is going to get a little bit graphic, guys, but if you’re here for it, you’re here for it. But in active labor, you’re going to notice a clear mucus coming out of her backside. I’m going to go ahead and get a visual picture here for you. Again, if you love visuals and you want a hard copy of this content, my book The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture is going to be what you want to look for. But I’m going to show you here on screen the active labor phase, because this is very, very helpful to know that something horrible is not happening to your sheep, as a beginner. It’s totally, totally normal. And so this is going to be showing you the active labor phase. The visuals are in the book. They are very, very well defined here. But no need to panic. If you see that, everything is going as it should. 

And then delivery takes about 30 to 45 minutes. So once you see the water bag come out, which should be shortly either before or after that sort of mucus stage, then you want to see the lamb delivered in about 45 minutes. So the water bag is going to emerge, it’s going to pop like a water balloon, and shortly thereafter, in a healthy delivery, you should see a lamb coming out with its snout propped right on top of two little hooves. And that is going to be what you want to see in a healthy and a normal sheep delivery. And you want to give the ewe at that time plenty of time and plenty of space. There’s a saying that goes “a watched pot never boils.” But essentially, if you see proper presentation, leave that thing alone for up to an hour, okay? I know I just said 30 to 45 minutes is normal. Up to an hour is absolutely fine. You don’t need to worry. When you see proper presentation, you don’t need to worry for at least an hour. Especially if she’s a first time mom. So give her all the time and space she needs to get that lamb out. Absolutely fine. If you’re seeing that proper presentation, give her time and space. Because what I’ve noticed is when I’m hovering around my ewe trying to watch her deliver, she gets nervous and sometimes she’ll stall out just as a result of being nervous. So give her her privacy and let her have the best chance of doing it all on her own that she can. For a first time ewe especially, I give it an hour, an hour and 15 minutes for delivery before I even think about worrying. 

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And then after a normal birth, the ewe will be licking and cleaning her lamb, and the lamb should be standing and suckling within 30 to probably 45 minutes. I mean, that’s a little generous. 45 minutes is a little generous, especially in cold weather. You want them up on their feet in 15 to 20 minutes. So if you’re lambing in cold weather, consider that. But the lamb shouldn’t be standing and suckling within a 30 to 45 minute time frame. Otherwise, you want to look and make sure that it can actually stand, period. But when do you jump in and assist? This is when I jump in and assist, and people are going to have a lot of different opinions about even assisting ewes at all, so the bottom line is, guys, I will assist my ewe when she needs help. Especially if she’s a first timer. I do not hold it against her. But when a lamb is poorly positioned and stuck in the birth canal, you’re going to want to jump in and assist. I’m going to go ahead and give you just a little look at some common malpresentations. So I just told you this is what you’re wanting to look for: two hooves with that nose propped nicely right on top. 

My most common malpresentation is when a lamb has one leg tucked back behind its shoulder. And what this does is that nose and sometimes that first hoof—they’re going to come out really nice and easy. And then this extra thick portion is going to get caught in the birth canal and jam, basically. It’s going to jam up, labor’s going to stall, you’re probably going to go out in the pasture and see a lamb that’s hung—which is the term for a lamb with its head hanging out of the ewe and unable to progress past that. And at that point in time, that’s a pretty simple pull. For me, I will just have the ewe rolled over on her side, and I’ll make sure that I’ve got a really firm grip on that front leg, and then a really firm grip on the back of the lamb’s neck, okay? I don’t want to be strangling it and pulling from this side, but I will very firmly give it a grasp over the back of the neck because you’re not going to strangle a lamb like that, and a very firm grasp on that hoof that is out, and then I’ll wait. As much as you’ll want to sit there and start pulling like the Dickens, which is what I did on my couple pulls, I now sit and wait for that ewe to push. And you’ll notice it—she’ll gear up, and there’ll be a contraction, and she’ll push. And as she has that contraction, I will give it a nice hard pull myself. And sometimes it’s got to be a very hard pull, but if you’re pulling with her contractions, even if it has to be a hard one—hands around the back of the neck, grab that front leg, sometimes tie a little bit of string to it to give you a better traction on it, and just pull it straight out. That’s the most common malpresentation. 

I have sometimes had just the head coming out. And when this has happened, it’s a bit of work, but I’ll have to go into the birth canal with my hand and I do my best to just swipe at least one leg forward to be coming out in front of that nose. So again, it takes some work, but it’s way better than just pulling on that neck because you’ve got a huge risk factor with that. So as long as it takes. Sometimes it takes upwards of 30 minutes, but I’ll just work my hand back there as much as I can into the birth canal. It’s a super tight squeeze sometimes, but if I can get my hand around there and I can feel for that leg, I’ll bring it up through the birth canal, and then I will perform the pull. Those are the two most common malpresentations. Now, those are not the two only ways that a sheep can come out wrong. Just ask any sheep and goat owner. You’re going to get tales of tangles. You guys can leave some in the comments if you want, but those at my farm are the most common. And anything more complex than that, do your best, but call a vet if you’re a beginner. So keep that in mind. One that I did not mention was an upside-down presentation. I’ve not had these yet. 

More commonly, I’ve had breech. And the way that you can tell breech—and you need to get in there and pull really fast—is when you have… I don’t know how to explain this because these hooves are not an accurate representation of hooves, but essentially a lamb’s hoof is going to be pointed, and her little toes—is what I like to call them—will be pointing towards the sky. So there’s going to be a slope that is kind of an ascending slope on those hooves if she’s coming out the right way. If she’s coming out the wrong way, if she’s coming out breech, there’s going to be a descending slope on these hooves. So, you’re going to get the back legs, and her toes are going to be pointing down. If you see toes pointing down, again, you need to get in there and pull that limb really quickly because breech presentation, typically the cord snaps before the lamb is birthed, and she actually will suffocate in utero if you don’t pull it fast enough. So when I see a breech, which is those toes pointing down rather than towards the sky, get in there, do a quick pull of it. Don’t wait for contractions at that point. For me, I don’t wait for contractions. I’ll just pull a breech as fast as I can because the cord could be snapped already. You could just have a matter of minutes. So keep that in mind. 

Teresa seconds it. She says, “Yes, pull downward with the contraction.” So I did not mention that little downward curve, but if you’re thinking about the birth canal and as you’re pulling, just kind of pull it in a slight downward curve. It’s a lot easier on the tail bone. If you think about it, the tail bone of the sheep is sloped. And so rather than pulling up and out, that’s not going to help, you want to pull down and out. So, a little sheep midwifery tonight, but that’s where we’re at. And I always had a dream of being a midwife when I was younger. I wanted to deliver human babies so bad. And there’s still plenty of time in my life to learn to do that, but I feel like it’s very ironic and providential that I am now a sheep midwife, and I love it so much. Jared says, “Do the ewes eat the afterbirth?” Jared, sometimes. And I’ve heard that if a ewe does eat her after birth, it’s one of two things. It’s either the predator protection reflex coming into place. Essentially, when sheep were raised in the wild or were in the wild, they would often eat the afterbirth as a means of covering that blood, guts, and keeping predators off their trail. Another thing I’ve heard is that it’s actually a vitamin deficiency. And I did notice in that year where I had the extreme selenium deficiency in my flock, I had a lot of ewes eating their placentas. It’s absolutely disgusting. But if it happens at your farm, know that it is either an instinct to ward off predators, or it is a selenium or vitamin deficiency. Either way, she’s going to be fine if she does that. I would not recommend it. It’s gross because I’ve watched it and I’ve seen it, but it’s normal. 

All right, back to the slides, guys, going to try to get through these. We are almost 15 minutes off from the end, and I am so excited to be packing all of this information I can in for you tonight. But another quick thing is that when you are raising your ewes on pasture, oftentimes you’ll need to corral them or catch them to assist in labor. And that is often half the work when you’re going to assist a ewe—catching her. There are just a couple of small tips here for you if you have to find yourself in that situation. You can either chase the ewe until she becomes exhausted—but typically you exhaust yourself before that happens—or what I like to do is just lead her to a smaller enclosure. If you have a small flock of maybe four or five, it’s easy enough to lead the entire flock into that enclosure and just isolate that one ewe that you need to. And another thing is I’ll just simply grab and go. Sometimes a ewe is in so much distress or she is so distracted trying to give birth that I can just quietly go up on the back of her and grab her back leg really firmly, and then just leverage and flip her over. Takes a little bit of a quick action, but if any of you guys have been into any kind of martial arts, then you’ll know leverage is everything, and that is the same case when it comes to just flipping a ewe. Get in, and flip quickly. 

Another one is I will also take a feed bucket out. And my sheep are bucket trained. So even in the midst of active labor, that ewe is going to perk up and follow a bucket. I mean, at least mind you, 9 times out of 10. So when she’s got her head very deep inside that bucket, again, I’ll just grab her back leg and flip her over, and it becomes a very, very easy process at that time. So whether you have been in a lambing before and have had to assist and recognize the absolute agony of trying to catch one on pasture that has a lamb hanging or not, that is basically the bottom line of it. So after you do pull that lamb, you want to place it as close to the mom’s face as possible. If the ewe has twins in her, what I typically do is I’ll pull that second lamb as well, regardless of presentation, and that is simply because by pulling the first one, I’ve already disrupted that normal labor process. And I just want to make sure the second one comes out safe as well. I mean, it just kind of puts my mind at ease. So while I may not need to pull the second, I always do go in and look for a second one and go ahead and pull it if she’s had troubles with the first. Make sure that ewe has acknowledged her lamb before you leave her: put it up by her face, let her instincts kick in—make sure she’s licking them and being attentive to them before you will leave her. 

Another one, guys, and this is just best practice for a ewe that’s been in super distress. If a ewe has been at labor for a long time—say you woke up in the morning and you realize it’s been several hours, and she’s got a lamb that’s hung and she’s been pushing for hours—what I like to do is follow up with just a vitamin B injection. B12, wherever you can get it. The veterinary has B12, and it is excellent. And that’s going to really restore her energy levels because that is an exhausting process trying to push a lamb out, but it won’t. And then another thing that is also a great little follow up that I like to do, especially if it’s been a difficult delivery and maybe there’s a little bit of extra blood loss, is I will follow up with an iron supplement. This is not a sheep iron supplement, so this is going to be an off-label suggestion. I’m going to say don’t do it at your farm because this is a pig iron supplement, but I do it at my farm, and I will give this about one to two mL for a 140-pound ewe. And I’ll do that when she’s had extreme blood loss during labor and delivery or maybe she’s a small ewe. And again, with extreme blood loss, I will get her a little bit of an iron supplement. 

Another option here for iron supplement, a little bit lower key if you don’t like the injections, is NutriDrench. And this is a little bit less potent, but still really, really great. And this is kind of like a catch all. Some people do it as a protocol after lambing. They’ll just give NutriDrench, period. It’s an iron supplement with a little vitamin fortification, and that is a great follow up for any stressful situations. Ramona seconds it. She says, “B12 with iron and a bucket of warm water with molasses added,” and that’s her followup for a difficult delivery. So that is a general protocol for that. Okay, and Huck says, “Love the NutriDrench. We use it in any stressful situations.” Absolutely. It’s like a multivitamin. It’s like you should eat it every day, and then it’s really not going to hurt to give it to every ewe after delivery. It’s just going to do good as far as I’ve ever found. April says, “Are goats the same way?” And the answer is yes. A lot of the follow up and the supplements that I use for my sheep, I will use for a small goat herd. I don’t run goats at the level I do sheep, but all of the husbandry pretty much crosses over. 

April also says, “My friend’s goat gave birth this week. It was their first kidding, and they said she did not deliver the afterbirth till the next day, and it came out in pieces. Is this normal?” No, that is not normal. The afterbirth actually should be delivered about an hour after the lamb is born. If the afterbirth has been retained, once again, that’s a selenium deficiency in a lot of cases. It was in my first year—I had a retained placenta. It was not an entire day, but it was several, several hours. So it is a deficiency. And as Ramona tagged you and said, “No, it’s not normal,” no, it is not normal. You are risking infection when you have a placenta come out the next day in pieces. So get that goat some antibiotic or something. 

The critical first 24 hours of a newborn lamb’s life

All right. So within the first three hours, your lamb has two critical tasks to accomplish. We’ve just transitioned out of lambing, and now we’re really going to be focusing in on the first 24 hours. And there are two very distinct things that your lamb needs to do within the first three hours. Now it’s ideal for it to happen within the first 15 minutes, but if it has not happened within three hours, get in there and get the lamb some help. But standing and sucking are those two critical tasks. The reason being is that colostrum—that first milk—has got to get into the lamb as quickly as possible. The antibodies in that colostrum, the nutrition that is in that first milk is absolutely critical to set your lamb up for a lifetime of success. In order to raise a lamb for a lifetime of success, it is absolutely paramount that it gets roughly eight ounces of colostrum within the first 24 hours, and that that first two to four ounces happens and is taken in within its first four hours. If that lamb is born and has not had colostrum within its first 24 hours, it’s almost a death sentence for that lamb. The lamb is going to survive for a little bit, maybe up to a couple months, but at that first challenge of its immune system, its body is going be like, “Oh wait, I don’t have an immune system because I didn’t get my colostrum,” and it’s going to pop up and die. 

It’s a bit blunt, but essentially I want to explain the importance of colostrum. And I have finished up lambing, so I’m actually out of full packages, but you’ll find this at Shepherdess.com—it’s CL Ewe Replacer. This is an actual colostrum replacement that is made of real colostrum. So if in any situation a lamb is born and I have any suspicion whatsoever, I am going to supplement with colostrum. Even if the mom might have plenty, I’m going to err on the side of caution and get that lamb two to four ounces of colostrum right away. If it looks a little bit weak, if the moms udder looks a bit empty—anything. I’m going to get that lamb colostrum because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I’m going to show you the tube feeding. So basically, when it’s lambing season, I’ve got like a pocket, and this tube feeding kit is always in my pocket. And it’s always full with at least one dose of colostrum. So I’m walking around pasture, I see a lamb, it looks weak or I see lamb in its mom’s udder looks a little bit empty, I’m like, “Tube it.” And I will do that just for my own peace of mind. And also because in my first lambing season, again, I had lambs that failed to thrive because they just did not get enough colostrum. 

But colostrum, again, essentially it’s the milk that a ewe produces in the first 24 hours after giving birth. It’s responsible for building a lamb’s immune system. If the lamb receives no colostrum, it will have no immune system and that might be a little bit hyperbolic. It’s going to have some tiny immune system, but it’s not going to be robust enough to survive, especially if you’re in harsh conditions and a pasture-based system. So do all that you can to ensure a lamb nurses vigorously from a healthy udder within the first few hours of life. If there’s no way to get that lamb actual milk from its mom—if you can’t milk it’s mom or if you can milk another ewe from your flock—make sure you have a super, super good quality colostrum replacer. This is available at Shepherdess.com along with the tube feeding kit. But these two things are like non-negotiables. This in one pocket, this in the other, walking the pasture making sure lambs are okay, and I’ll get them a dose of that whenever necessary. 

All right. Learning to tube feed is really important. The reason I use a tube feeding instead of a bottle essentially—again, in that full class, you’re going to get a tube feeding video that’s going to show you how to get this thing in the lamb’s stomach and not the lungs—but sometimes when the lamb needs colostrum, it does not have a strong sucking reflex, so this will just go straight into the stomach. And within a matter of about five minutes… I go very, very slow. I try not to use the plunger. So I’m just going to take the plunger off so it’s not a distraction. But I let that colostrum gravity-feed into the lamb’s belly, and that takes about five minutes on its own. But within five minutes, I can have that lamb supplemented with about 60 mL, and it’s good to go. But that’s why I like to use it—it’s fast, and getting a lamb to latch onto a bottle takes time. And also it can cause nipple confusion. So when I do use the tube feeder, it allows that lamb to continue the bonding process with its mom. It takes a five-minute break to get its belly full, but then it has the energy from that belly full to get up and nurse the extra colostrum off its mom. And that’s why I really, really love tube feeding. 

Tressa says that tube feeding scares her to death, but has had a fair share of kids born over the last five years that need it. But essentially, when you’re tube feeding a lamb, you’re going to be putting it into the left side. But if you have a lamb, you do not want the lamb to be laying on the ground and you’re trying to get the tube in while it’s laying on the ground. You want to put the lamb in an upright position, and you want to keep the head propped up—whether it’s conscious or not—because the tube will slide down. And this was a tip that I received from a highly experienced shepherd: there’s a much lower risk of entering the lungs, number one, if you enter through the left side, but also if you make sure that that head is propped up in an upright position. Those are kind of two critical tips for people who are terrified of tube feeding, but that is it. 

All right, guys, I’m going to have to wrap this up tonight. I did not quite finish out the 24 hours, but we’re at the end of our hour, and I hope you enjoyed it. If you felt yourself wanting more information, just know that Lamb for Life goes into depth all the way up to eight months on raising your lamb to eight months. I’m so grateful for you guys showing up for the one hour class. But guys, I appreciate you turning out tonight. I’m going to go ahead and answer just a couple of questions here. But Jessica says, “How do you know how much a lamb has eaten?” And Jessica, when a lamb is hungry, basically it’ll stand up and it’ll crunch up. It’ll like crunch up and hobble. It’s called the hungry hunch. When a lamb has had a belly full of food, it’ll get up and immediately it’ll stretch its back out long and hard, and that’s how I know whether a lamb is hungry or satisfied. It’s the satisfied stretch, is what I call it. And so if I’m suspicious that a lamb is hungry, I’ll just go over and give it a little nudge with my boot, make it get out of its little curl on the ground, and immediately watch it when it gets up on its feet. If it’s hunched up and it looks like its belly aches and it’s empty in there, get it some food. But if it does a nice, long stretch, it has a belly full. Again, this is an expert pro tip that I got from another shepherd and also just a general tip from experience. Okay, guys, I appreciate your attendance, and this was so much fun and so full. Thank you all.