I am not one of the caretakers, but my current facility has a March 1 bottle raised lamb. The critter is finally eating hard feed well, and we are mulling over how to get it back to a livestock lifestyle. It has been living in a work shop immediately adjacent to the farm office. We tried introducing it to the adult sheep group and the adults were terrified of it. Potentially a few more lambs may come, but for now he is our only one.
Presuming you have some sheep knowlege, so just asking if lamb had his shots? Here in MI, they include Selenium and Vit E, to prevent white muscle disease. Lack of these basic things will cause death. The local Vet can advise if lamb needs other shots specific to your location. We give the pregnant sheep these shots too, so new lambs have some in their system before getting their own shot. Vet can advise you on that timing of pregnant sheep shots as well.
I would make lamb a small pen beside the mature sheep so they can visit him, sniff him, get used to him. Has lamb been banded, for castration and tail? Should be soon if he is not going to stay a ram, less flies now than later for infection. Pen can be near where the other sheep get food or water, so they are somewhat forced to go near him. See if they get more accepting of him over the next week or two. He does smell different drinking formula, eating pellets, not hay or mother’s milk. Lamb needs a bit of size, sturdiness before return to the flock because he WILL get bunted trying to learn his place in the flock. Lamb doesn’t think he is a sheep, humans feed him, so he thinks he needs to be with humans!
A tip for sheep, is to only pet, rub, scratch the SIDES of heads to prevent them wanting to bunt YOU! Rubbing foreheads incites the fighting instinct, them wanting to charge you. Especially bad idea rubbing foreheads of rams. They WILL HURT YOU! Rams need to be out of the flock except at breeding time. Carry a sturdy staff EVERY TIME if a person has to go in with them and DO NOT TURN YOUR BACK ON THEM. Pet lambs grown into rams are the worst at surprise attacks, you are not their friend anymore! 200+ pounds of ram hitting you causes a lot of damage including death, not funny at all.
You seperate the rams out of flock so you can do better with having your lambs arriving at the same time, not spread way out. You may increase lamb production by getting a new, younger ram, since the previous ram did not seem to get a lot of ewes bred. Also plan on using a different, follow-up ram for the second heat cycles of unbred ewes which first ram did not get bred during his time in the flock. Do you use a marking harness to note which ewes he covers for record keeping? The harness has been very useful for us, then changing color for follow-up ram for noting who he got bred and when. When the lambs arrive, you will know by arrival dates, color records, which ram did the best job for your flock. Ewes not bred may need culling from the flock. My friend bought a young ram, used ONLY him on the ewes. Friend had NO lambs come spring, ram was infertile. Expensive lesson and a whole year wasted except for wool production.
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Thanks goodhors. Yes we had thought to put pen by adult pen.
Lamb has been to vet several times so I will presume all health details are covered.
As far as regular handling behaviors, I am not involved, so that is out of my control.
These sheep are are not for sale, just pets/landscape decoration.
It is very important that if ram lambs, wethers (neutered males), and adult males are fed hard feed, it must be treated with ammonium chloride. Male sheep are extremely prone to urinary calculi when fed on untreated hard food. This is especially important when the males are “just pets/landscape decoration,” because they don’t go for slaughter and live much longer than commercial stock.
Will check into that. Wonder if vet mentioned it to them?
Ok. Sounded like you might be getting more involved in the sheep part of farm job, so added extra information to keep you safe with male sheep. Absolutely check on addition to male sheep feed, to prevent urinary problems. Bad enough losing pets to old age, best not to speed that up with them lacking a small addition to their diet as RutlandH20 suggests.
