The winter and spring lambing and kidding seasons always bring babies in need of extra care.  Often called “bummers”, these young animals may be rejected by their mothers or orphaned due to the death of the ewe or doe.  They seek to “bum” milk from other females in the herd, but are rarely adopted without human intervention.  Although bummers can be successfully raised by hand, taking care of young lambs and kids is quite a lot of work and requires planning ahead and careful attention to feeding schedules.

Colostrum feeding is the single most critical point in a young ruminant’s entire life and must occur as soon as possible after birth (within the first few hours is best, and no later than 24 hours after birth). The first milk produced by the mother, colostrum provides a concentrated source of energy, protein and passive immunity in the form of antibodies which will protect the young animal from infectious agents until its own immune system is functioning.  The longer the delay between birth and feeding of colostrum, the poorer the animal's ability to absorb that colostrum will be. Additionally, the quality of the colostrum secreted by the mother rapidly decreases within hours after birthing.  Animals orphaned at birth usually do not receive colostrum and often become ill or die within the first few weeks of life.

Because it is such an important factor in the survival of a newborn, you should have a good source of frozen colostrum available if at all possible.  Although sheep colostrum may be hard to come by, colostrum can often be obtained from goat dairies and fed to both kids and lambs.  When feeding goat colostrum, be sure it comes from goats free of CAEV and Johne’s disease.  Cow colostrum is better than none at all, but as it is less concentrated than goat or sheep colostrum a larger quantity must be fed to the orphaned lamb or kid.

Ideally, a lamb or kid should receive 1oz (30ml) per pound of bodyweight of its own mother's colostrum, within 1 hour of birth. Thus a 5lb lamb will be fed 5oz of colostrum at the first feeding.  Additionally, 3oz per pound should be divided into small amounts fed every 2 hours within the first 24 hours of life.  Waiting several hours after the initial feeding to ensure the baby is hungry before the next feeding will aid in bottle training.  If the lamb or kid is unable to nurse on its own you may need to feed with a stomach tube.  When feeding kids and lambs with a stomach tube, give no more than 20ml per pound of body weight at each feeding.

After the initial feeding of colostrum you will begin feeding a commercial lamb or kid milk replacer.  If you have enough colostrum, gradually mix in milk replacer over the next 24-48 hours.  Because of the health problems associated with overfeeding milk replacer, newborns should receive only 10% of their body weight in milk replacer each day for the 5 days of life.  Then, gradually increase the daily volume fed to reach 15-20% of body weight during the second week of life.  This corresponds with 1.5oz per pound per day during the first 5 days, then 2-3oz per pound per day thereafter.  Thus a 5lb lamb should receive 7.5oz per day initially, then 10-15oz per day once it has adjusted to bottle feeding.  This daily amount should be divided into several feeding over each 24 hour period. Increase the amount of milk fed and reduce the number of feedings per day as the lamb gains weight and gets older.  (See schedule below.)

Feeding newborn lambs and kids over 24 hours old:

Day 2 thru 3: every 3 hours
Day 4 thru 7: every 4 hours            
Day 8 thru 21: every 6 hours            Begin offering solid feed (alfalfa hay and starter grain)
Day 21 thru 35: every 8 hours            Consider weaning once lamb/kid weighs 20lbs
Day 25 till weaning: every 12 hours.