Bottle Baby Feeding

Both had almost a 1 cup feeding this afternoon of goats milk That's exactly what I want! Guess we are switching completely to goats milk and ditching the replacer. It's awful to try to get the big one to suck at all, but @AriesX I had completely forgot about anal stimulation, and it worked! She is sucking on the teat much more than before, though still mostly chewing. We will keep working with her.

Poops on the little one are looking good, and lots of them! Still no sign of poops from the big one, gave her 6cc mineral oil last night. Maybe I'll give some molasses with her bottle this evening and see if that helps. I think the creep feed stopped her whole system right up.

Glad to hear that you are getting them to eat some!

Thanks @Hens and Roos, I'm so glad! We're not out of the woods yet, the big one's system is still slowed and she didn't take a bottle this morning. She is also having really runny poop, though the little one's poop is not great either. I can't remember what it's supposed to look like at this age, someone needs to make a chart Right now it's a mustardy consistency and color (yellowish to orangeish), but sometimes brownish/oliveish. Really messy on their butts and legs, so I've been cleaning them. Not watery though. Hope the poops get more solid soon. These lambs are too cute, poop and all.

Oregano oil will help with Scours if you have it on hand; two drops of 60% carvacol should do as it's potent as all mess I would suggest adding some commercial buttermilk or yogurt into their bottle for some probiotics. The change over from replacer to real milk might be what's causing runny butt syndrome! I like to mix conventional high fat buttermilk into slightly warm milk, shake and let stand for a couple minutes to allow the good cultures to proliferate. With yogurt I prefer to mix and leave it over night on the counter to encourage growth.

Sweetened said:

Oregano oil will help with Scours if you have it on hand; two drops of 60% carvacol should do as it's potent as all mess I would suggest adding some commercial buttermilk or yogurt into their bottle for some probiotics. The change over from replacer to real milk might be what's causing runny butt syndrome! I like to mix conventional high fat buttermilk into slightly warm milk, shake and let stand for a couple minutes to allow the good cultures to proliferate. With yogurt I prefer to mix and leave it over night on the counter to encourage growth.

Click to expand...

I really wish I had some oregano oil on hand, especially for use with the poultry, but keep forgetting to order it. We are including excess whey from yogurt in with the bottles, I will have to remember to let it sit out at room temp, love that idea. I'm also smearing a tsp of yogurt on the big lamb's tongue a few times a day for some extra probios.

For other with bottle lamb or kid problems, I found a great resource on scours. Looks like it is just the switchover. Hoping by 2 weeks old their systems will straighten themselves out.

Do you all think I should alternate milk feedings with electrolytes like I would do with replacer? Or just stick to adding probios to the diet? Maybe some scour-stop meds or something like that?

I wouldn't mess with anything you're doing. Electrolytes work on hydration, probiotics restore gut balance. I think it might be more important to get milk in her over electrolytes as you want the nutrition; and with the milk you're getting fluids; you can give sub-Q saline if you're worried about dehydration. Have you considered tubing her? I've never done it, but I think it's a skill I need to learn.

Probiotics will never hurt in any situation, so pairing them with whatever treatment will be beneficial. Do you have Grapefruit Seed Extract? It could be used in place of Oregano oil using about 5 drops instead of 2 (can mix it into a bottle). My other suggestion would be if you're using those black or brownish lamb nipples, try an easier nipple like the red vented pritchard nipples. When we had the triplets there, I tried the black ones initially but they take sucking power -- the pritchard nipple was learned quickly and i have now merged them to the black ones.

Good luck, my fingers are crossed for you.

Hang on, my VetRx has oregano oil as the fourth ingredient (alcohol, balsam, camphor, then origanum). It says it can be used internally as well. Would that be an okay substitute? Don't have any GSE. We have them on the pritchard nipples, the lambs always seem to take to those easier than the others. And luckily they will both occasionally sip at the water bowl, so I am not too worried about fluids. Lamb tube is on my list to order this week in prep for our lambing! I'm sure we're going to need it.

Both lambs have sucked at the bottle for the rest of todays feedings, though .

The lambs are currently chowing down on straw... huh.

Thank you @Sweetened, as usual you have some incredibly helpful thoughts and advice!

You're looking for the active constituent: Carvacol. Origanum will not have he same potency but i can't see it not helping. Camphor is an expectorant (i think this is the right term), so it makes coughs effective and causes the lungs to expell material like phlegm and mucous (not recommended for internal use for humans). Balsam is a fir, so would have immune boosting properties like vitamin C

I appreciate your words, but I'm not sure how helpful, ahaha. Glad things are going alright today.