Lamb in a Fur Coat
We are going to be pretty real in this blog post and share one of the realities of farming.
Let’s just get it out there - lambs die. Sometimes they are stillborn or have complications. They can get stepped on or layed on or die from hypothermia. Lambs can die for what seems like no reason at all sometimes, at least no reason that we can figure out! Keeping a lamb alive can be tough - and then add bad weather to the mix.
We always do everything we can to keep every single lamb alive but sometimes we lose them. And when we do it is devistating for us and for the ewe.
Sometimes the stars align and good can come from the loss of a lamb. When we lose one we always see if there is a lamb we can give to the ewe to raise! Sometimes it just so happens that another ewe is not wanting to take her baby or we recently had triplets and can spread out the lambs.
The process of giving a ewe a new lamb after hers has died is called grafting. There are several methods and we have tried them all. There is one that works better than the rest but I will outline each one.
1. If you are trying to graft a lamb pretty quickly after the ewe gave birth to the dead lamb you can rub the amniotic and birthing fluid from the deceased lamb onto the lamb you are trying to graft. This will make the ewe think the lamb is new and needs to be cleaned off and it will smell like her baby. This can be a messy process and isn’t always convincing to the ewe.
2. The most difficult method is just by force. Hold the ewe still and make the new lamb suck from her. Once you go through this process several times, possibly for several days, the lamb will start to smell like the mom because of the milk running through the baby. When using this method you have to be careful that the ewe doesn’t try to shove the lamb away if you leave them alone in a pen.
3. Our favorite method, and what we find most successful, is also a little more involved and unpleasant. We call this the coat method. For this you will take the deceased lamb and remove the hide - make sure to leave the tail intact. You will then take the fur and cut a head and feet holes. Pop that fur coat on the lamb you are trying to graft - sometimes we use bailing twine to tie the coat at the belly. The fur coat smells like the baby and will almost always trick the ewe into thinking it is her kid. We leave the fur coat on for a day or two, just to make sure the lamb gets enough of mom’s milk running through them to start smelling like mom on the inside. The coat may start to smell a little - but trust me, it is worth it for a successful graft.
4. The last method, and probably least effective, is to put Vaseline under the ewe’s nose. The will make it hard for her to smell and she will hopefully just accept any lamb.
We recently had a ewe have a stillborn lamb. Lucikily we had a set of twins where one lamb was a lot smaller and we were able to graft the small twin onto the new mom. We used the coat method. The two took to each other like glue and have been happy ever since.
Grafting is not a fun task but it is an important one when necessary. If anyone has any questions about the process, please feel free to reach out to us!
