There is a saying amongst shepherds: the biggest pain in the world is a bottle baby lamb and the most rewarding thing in the whole world is a bottle baby lamb. These are both true from our experiences. I feel that is more rewarding than troublesome especially if the baby is a good looking ewe lamb. We have raised two ewe lambs "Tsunami's Whitecap" (3 years old) and "Like a Hurricane" (6 weeks old) with the help of Merricks' Super Lamb formula and Huggies disposable diapers. The first "Capi" was kick started with a neighbors cow colustrum as her mom was dry and we live in dairy country. Hurricane did not need colustrum because she had a mom before me for about a week. We use Corona bottles because they are clear and the black lambs nipples (.59 ea). Stock up on these because the lamb will wear them out. Make sure to have multiple bottles so the lamb does not get fixed on one particular nipple. We mix enough formula for a 24 hour period and keep it in the frig. We mix formula @ 5-1 instead of the 4-1 they suggest. We have our entire house in ceramic tile or hardwoods so it's easy to clean up but we usually confine the lamb in a dog crate or the men's room depending on what is going on. When the lamb is permitted to roam indoors she is diapered. When we feed her we usually sit on the deck or on the throne in the bathroom and our male airedale "Arlo" cleans her during feeding. Arlo and Domi, our female airedale play with her a short period everyday. The hardest thing is to move her outside as we become very attached. We reinforced our extra chicken coop and that becomes the halfway house. After work we let her out. Capi and 'Cane both did wind sprints over and over in the evenings to get their exercise. We introduce the lambs back to the herd just prior to feeding time and increase the time they spend with the "big girls" gradually. The ewes always pound them and that subsides over a time. We have field fencing so we have to be patient until the lambs get big enough that they can't pop through the fence. You can do this! The Barb that you bottle feed will always look at you differently than the other sheep do and I guarantee you will look diferrently at them too. Enjoy! Mark & Lin
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