5 Steps To Successful Lamb Rearing
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Colostrum
Colostrum is the key to reducing losses from hypothermia and disease.
- Feed within six hours of birth.
- Give 50ml per kg live weight per feed – minimum 210ml/kg body weight within first 24 hours.
- Ensure quality is optimum through ewe condition and health.
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Feeding System
When rearing 50 plus lambs a Volac Ecofeeder is an ideal system to reduce labour time and rear healthy lambs.
Lambs should consume 12-13kg milk replacer over the rearing period.
Feeding recommendations:
- 200g Mole Valley Farmers Lamlac + 800ml water = 1 litre of milk.
- Start lambs on restricted warm milk (390C) until trained (1 litre split into 4-5, 200-250ml feeds, per day.) Training usually takes 1-3 days.
- Ad-lib access to milk once trained. Temperature of the milk should be reduced to 18-20oC to reduce the risk of over consumption.
When rearing smaller numbers of lambs (20-40) the Volac Ewe 2 feeder is an ideal labour saving system.
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Milk Replacer
Mixing rate
200g powder + 800ml water = 1 litre of mixed milkMole Valley Farmers Lamlac can be used in automatic feeders, Ewe 2 and bottle systems.
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Weaning
Wean abruptly when lambs are:
- Minimum 2½ times birth weight (9-10kg).
- Minimum 35 days old.
- Eating 250g of solid feed per day.
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Dry Feed (recommendation)
MultiLamb Creep Pellets
A specialist, high quality, 18% protein, fixed formulation lamb feed with yeast, in pellet form, designed for high performance rearing systems. The product may be fed as a start to finish feed or as a traditional lamb creep.
Molecare Colostrum
The first feed is a critical part of a lamb’s life, with good quality colostrum required within the first six hours after birth. Molecare colostrum supplement contains specially selected nutrients to help give lambs a productive start to drive healthy growth and performance.
Molecare colostrum contains:
- Globular proteins – Supply resistance to help fight disease until immunity develops naturally.
- Fast and slow release energy – Support growth and help maintain body temperature.
- High fat – Replenishes reserves and insulates from the cold.
- Active egg proteins – Protect the gut from damaging bacteria.
- Gut conditioners – Effectively colonise and stabilise the active gut.
- Antioxidants – Support effective immune function to help fight disease.
- Vitamins and minerals – Nutrients important to health, growth and condition.
The ewe’s supply of colostrum to their lambs can vary dramatically depending on factors including nutrient
supply to the ewe, ewe condition or number of multiple births in the flock. All of these limit the quality or quantity of colostrum received at the teat.
Combined with external factors from the environment and the varying disease status of a flock it is important that lambs receive enough essential nutrients via colostrum to aid survival from the cold and disease.
Available in resealable easy store pouches with easy dose scoop. Dose size – 25g.
Mole Valley Farmers Lamlac®
Outstanding growth rates
- Mole Valley Farmers Lamlac is the number one tried and trusted ewe milk replacer.
- Made using British milk the powder is easy to mix and fully formulated to provide all the nutrients required by the lamb.
- Highly digestible and with natural health protection.
- Mole Valley Farmers Lamlac has been proven in trials to result in outstanding growth rates.
Surplus lambs are a fact of life; however, they can be successfully reared artificially without the problems of fostering onto an unwilling ewe.
Various milk feeding systems are available; however, they each require the combination of a good quality milk replacer, good husbandry and good organisation. We suggest you consider one of the following options.
Ad-lib Feeding
Systems suitable for five or more lambs. The Volac Ewe 2 nest bucket can rear up to 20 lambs and the Volac Ewe 2 Plus, up to 40 lambs.
Both systems are thermostat controlled and conveniently sit outside the pen, ensuring optimum safety and avoiding spillages.
Pros
- Several lambs can feed at once.
- Milk can be fed warm or cold.
- Milk consumed ‘little and often’ meaning less risk of digestive upsets.
- No limit to how much or when lambs can drink.
- Less labour intensive as the milk is made up in bigger volumes.
- Relatively low set up costs.
- Faster growth.
Automatic Machine Feeding
These systems can dramatically reduce the labour hours required for mixing milk and feeding lambs. High levels of management and hygiene are essential.
The Volac ECO feeder is available for larger volumes of lambs of up to 240 head; it features eight stations, each with a capacity of 20 to 30 lambs.
Pros
- Low labour requirements; a precise volume of powder is automatically mixed.
- Electronic heating regulator ensures the feed is consistently kept at the specified temperature.
- Suction hose cleaning system makes for easy cleaning.
- Lambs consume milk ‘little and often’ meaning less risk of digestive upsets.
- No limit to how much or when lambs can drink.
- Faster growth.