I use a combo of Mark Wintermutes' "Cold turkey" and his weight requirements (8 weeks and at least 25 lbs) and tapering, but I taper by cutting out say, the afternoon meal first, then the nightly, and then the morning meal. I don't dilute, but their last bottle will go down from 16 oz to 8 oz in the last 3-4 days or so. When they would come in for the nightly, I would notice their bellies were already VERY full from grazing. so I knew it was OK.
Since I wanted tame lambs, I raised three February bottle babies in a "nursery" of sorts, in a 10x20' horse paddock. They were allowed to graze after a couple of weeks -- once I was sure they would come back in on demand. Though grazing, they still get called in and locked up to sleep at night, even now--mainly due to their size--easy prey. By the time my one May ram lamb was born, they were already weaned and out with the adults in the pasture all day. Since the solitary May ram lamb had no companions his age, I was not about to try to leave him alone all day in a cage (he tried to self-destruct by bouncing off the walls and cage door), so I pulled the 3 weaned lambs in with him, and they "raised" him, for a week, which was noisy and a pain, because I had to bring them food as well and they let me know when it was time to eat. But it allowed him to bond, and herd, and once I opened up the cage for daytime grazing, he had bonded with the lambs and was part of a flock, and would come when called. He got weaned all by himself, and was at least 25 lbs and 8-9 weeks old. Same routine, his breakfast was his last bottle. _MWS _______________________________________________ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
