Domestic Sheep Reproduction - Postnatal Care

Postnatal Care

In normal situations, lambs nurse after standing, receiving vital colostrum milk. Lambs that either fail to nurse or are prevented from doing so by the ewe require aid in order to live. If coaxing the pair to accept nursing does not work, one of several steps may then be taken. Ewes may be held or tied to force them to accept a nursing lamb. If a lamb is not eating, a stomach tube may also be used to force feed the lamb in order to save its life. In the case of a permanently rejected lamb, a shepherd may then attempt to foster an orphaned lamb onto another ewe. Lambs are also sometimes fostered after the death of their mother, either from the birth or other event.

Scent plays a large factor in ewes recognizing their lambs, so disrupting the scent of a newborn lamb with washing or over-handling may cause a ewe to reject it. Conversely, various methods of imparting the scent of a ewe's own lamb to an orphaned one may be useful in fostering. If an orphaned lamb cannot be fostered, then it usually becomes what is known as a bottle lamb—a lamb raised by people and fed via bottle.

After lambs are stabilized, lamb marking is carried out – this includes ear tagging, docking, castration and usually vaccination. Ear tags with numbers are the primary mode of identification when sheep are not named; it is also the legal manner of animal identification in the European Union: the number may identify the individual sheep or only its flock. When performed at an early age, ear tagging seems to cause little or no discomfort to lambs. However, using tags improperly or using tags not designed for sheep may cause discomfort, largely due to excess weight of tags for other animals.

Ram lambs not intended for breeding are castrated, though some shepherds choose to avoid the procedure for ethical, economic or practical reasons. Ram lambs that will be slaughtered or separated from ewes before sexual maturity are not usually castrated. In most breeds, lambs' tails are docked for health reasons. The tail may be removed just below the lamb's caudal tail flaps (docking shorter than this may cause health problems such as rectal prolapse), but in some breeds the tail is left longer, or is not docked at all. Docking is not necessary in short-tailed breeds, and it is not usually done in breeds in which a long tail is valued, such as Zwartbles. Though docking is often considered cruel and unnatural by animal rights activists, it is considered by sheep producers large and small alike to be a critical step in maintaining the health of sheep. Long, wooly tails make shearing more difficult, interfere with mating, and make sheep extremely susceptible to parasites, especially those that cause flystrike. Both castration and docking can be performed with several different instruments. An elastrator places a tight band of rubber around an area, causing it to atrophy and fall off in a number of weeks. This process is bloodless and does not seem to cause extended suffering to lambs, who tend to ignore it after several hours. In addition to the elastrator, a Burdizzo, emasculator, heated chisel or knife are sometimes used. After one to three days in the lambing jugs, ewes and lambs are usually sufficiently stabilized to allow reintroduction to the rest of the flock.