I will give you my perspective since we raise a few hundred lambs a year on milk replacer.
Because we are milking our ewes, we practice a day one weaning. After birth, lambs and ewes are jugged together for twenty four hours. Then the lambs are taken and the ewes enter the milking string. Twelve hours after separation from the ewes, the lambs are fed milk replacer from a human baby bottle. Twelve hours later they are started on a lambar bucket. (A lambar is a bucket with nipples connected to a plastic tube that sticks down into the milk inside the bucket) Lambs are shown how to use the lambar every six to eight hours until they figure it out. Some learn right away, others take a day or two. As the lambs progress they are graduated to larger pens/groups with lambar boxes that I designed and built, or an automatic milk replacer feeding machine. By five days old they are introduced to grain and alfalfa hay. At two weeks we introduce water and by thirty days they are weaned from milk and get free choice grain and alfalfa. This year we purchased 6000 pounds of milk replacer. I shop around and find the best deals. This year we are using "Advance" from Milk Specialties company. I got a bulk price of $22.18 per 25 pound bag. When planning for the amount needed, we take the number of lambs expected and plan on eighteen pounds of powder for each lamb from start to finish. Currently we have about 160 lambs on the nipple system. The first will be weaned starting the 15th of March. We will feed about 330 lambs on milk replacer this season. Our mortality rate is very low right now. We have lost only nine lambs and only one was from starvation. We usually plan for a 10% mortality. This system has worked well for us for the past six years raising large groups of lambs on milk replacer. Larry Meisegeier River Ridge Stock Farm Bruce, WI 715-868-2285 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.sheepmilk.biz =============================================== This message is from the Barbados Blackbelly Sheep mailing list (http://www.awrittenword.com/listserv/index.html). To respond to this message, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe or change your membership options, go to http://lists.coyotenet.net/mailman/listinfo/blackbelly To search the archives, go to http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
