Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful responses. Yesterday I found BamBam, they boy, had a temperature 2 degrees lower than the rest of the lambs. Being new to shepherding, I made an appointment with the vet this morning and brought him in. His temp was back up to normal but he was still resting while everyone was frolicking. The Vet's advice was to add some goat's milk (real, not supplement) to his diet --as he will eat it. His point was: if he takes a bottle at all, he's hungry, especially if he's used to his mother's milk. This Vet is an experienced shepherder as well.
Also, we are strongly considering converting our 4 lambs to the bottle soon, anyways, because we would like them tame. We're not raising them for livestock. So I'd like to get the milking thing under my belt. While we can work supplement into the diet, I would like the bottle conversion to start with goat or sheep's milk. I'll check out my ewe as Mark advised, and compare to another ewe in the same nursery pen. From what I remember the bag on both udders felt pliable and "water ballon" like, but there was some very firm tissue under the entire bag area. (probably normal?) I'll check for a mucous plug as well. I have an experienced goat herder who raises pygmies, coming by this weekend to try to milk some of my ewes, to see if we can get past my barrier with them. _Michael, Perino Ranch Blackbellies. _______________________________________________ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
