In recent days, several ewes have arrived at the due date one after another, and in order to ensure the survival rate of newborn lambs, the family is busy around the sheep pen every day. It was the coldest season of the year, when the fourth and ninth seasons of the year, because there was no monitoring equipment installed inside the sheep pen, and I was afraid that the ewes would freeze to death when they were lambtening in the middle of the night, so my second uncle and I took turns to watch them at night.
At 2:30 p.m., I was sleeping in a daze when I suddenly heard the sheep in the sheep pen calling, got up and got dressed and ran to the sheepfold. One of the big ewes gave birth to 1 male, 2 females and 3 small lambs, and the lambs froze and curled up in a circle around the corner of the wall.
Look at this big ewe, it is a fertile ewe that has given birth to 3 children before, but the motherhood is still so poor that she does not know how to lick the mucus off the lamb with her tongue. Not only did he not lick the little lamb, but he also hit the little male lamb in it with his head, as if it were not his own.
My second uncle and I had no choice but to build a fire in the sheepfold, first warm the three lambs, and then clean their mouths, noses, ears and body mucus with our hands, and then take care of them to eat colostrum.
Raising this kind of small-tailed cold sheep with poor motherhood will be sinned by farmers and lambs. It may be that the ewe smells the lamb's smell of us humans, and then does not let the 3 lambs eat colostrum. My second uncle and I were about to go crazy, soft can only come hard, I fixed the big sheep on the side, the second uncle picked up the lambs and forced them to take turns eating colostrum.
The effect of colostrum on lambs is irreplaceable, if we can't see 3 lambs eating colostrum, we farmers can't go to sleep with confidence. Just such a toss, open the phone to look at the time, it is 5:30 a.m., next to the neighbor's big rooster has also begun to crow, fortunately, the 3 baby bumps have eaten the colostrum, this can at least ensure that they are alive, me and my second uncle are relieved to leave and go back to sleep.
Coincidentally, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I went to the back of the sheepfold and went around, and found another ewe lying in the corner of the wall ready to give birth. It looked like a smooth birth, no artificial midwifery, and in less than ten minutes, a beautiful baby sheep landed on the ground.
The headache happened as it was. This ewe is a newborn ewe, has never had the experience of producing lambs before, although it is born relatively smoothly, but it is still a common problem unique to small-tailed cold sheep: poor motherhood.
Instead of licking the lamb, but also using the lamb on the top of the head, I had to use the old method used in the middle of the night to clean the mucus on its body first, and then artificially force the lamb to eat the colostrum. Because it is a newborn ewe, only one baby sheep is born, but this situation is also particularly common, the reproductive rate of the newborn ewe is not high, as long as the lamb can survive smoothly, it is the biggest good news.
Of course, for ewes who have just given birth to a baby sheep, they must take good care of their bodies. Anyway, I give them warm noodle soup every time, and if there is no noodle soup, I use warm bran light salt water instead. But it must be remembered that the first three days of nursing ewes can not feed them corn, soybeans and other refined feed, this period of ewe concentrate is too much, it is likely to induce mastitis.
Writing this, I think everyone has guessed that there is a small tailed cold sheep. I hadn't felt much before, but after these two reactions of pregnant ewes to lambing, I really realized how important the quality of ewe motherhood is to the reproduction of the whole flock.
I have heard some people say that the motherhood of lake sheep is much better than that of small-tailed cold sheep, and there are no bad behaviors such as not licking the lamb, bumping the lamb, and not letting the lamb eat colostrum. Unfortunately, I haven't introduced the lake sheep breed yet, and if that's what these people say, I think it's time to introduce two lake sheep breeding rams to improve the overall femininity of my little tailed cold sheep breeding ewes. I don't know if this will have a real improvement effect? Please ask your peers who personally breed lake sheep breeds to help analyze this problem.