Orphan lamb ruminating??

hannah208478

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Hello,
Looking for some guidance. We have an orphan lamb (4 and a half weeks old). She has been bottle fed approx. 1000ml over the course of a day every 4 hours. This week she has been very interested in pellets and grazing much more than normal. She is in a field with other lambs and 2 ewes. She wasn’t interested in her milk this morning and then 4 hours later she wanted to drink but she would stop every few sucks. We phoned the vet to see what they thought - he said could just be that she is ruminating and her gut is contracting so gave her a small muscle relaxing injection to help her deal with it. She’s in fine spirits, her stomach hasn’t changed size (e.g bloat) and has had about 400ml of lamlac along with 2/3 handfuls of pellets. I just wondered if anyone else had experienced this before? Is she not interested in her bottle because her stomach is changing? Is this common because I cannot seem to find anything anywhere else!
thanks 😊
 

purplequeenvt

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She may be filling up on “real” food and isn’t hungry for milk. She might be starting to self-wean so as long as she is pooping, peeing, and otherwise seems happy and healthy, she’s probably fine.

At 4.5 weeks, you should drop her feedings to 3x a day rather than every 4 hours.
 

hannah208478

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Thank you!! She seems to be a lot more chipper today and was keen for her milk so you may have been right RE filling up on grass/pellets etc.
 

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