It's official. I have two bottle babies.
I tried everything I could think of, but in the end, Amelia proved to be more stubborn than I. In the first 48 hrs she went from being uninterested, to mildly interested but unwilling to nurse, to hostile. At hostile, I gave in and pulled her out of the pen. Interestingly, she has taken to sitting up against the panel between the two pens -- where she can see the babies, but doesn't have to interact with them. Not a great mothering strategy. 
I did try to milk her, both to feed the babies and to get the oxytocin flowing, but that was not very successful either. She hated it. Kicked, squirmed, tensed up, you name it. I never got more than about 1/2 a cup from her at a time, which wasn't enough to feed the babies and didn't seem like enough to justify stressing her out either, so I stopped.
On the upside, I am totally hooked on the possibility of a dairy goat, not that I need any more chores.
Um, no.
Not right now.
But someday maybe...
Once Amelia was out of the picture, I put the babies in with Riversong, Martha and Martha's little one. I won't bring them inside unless I think they're at risk for some reason .
So far, so good.
Martha tolerates them.
Riversong is a nice warm body.
And their big brother is thrilled to have them. 
So, do you have to bottle feed the babies, or is another Mom doing it?
ReplyDeleteGoat milk rules, but luckily we have a couple farms around here that sell it. If not, I'd have to seriously think about keeping one on hand just for folks (myself included) that end up with bottle babies. I think the formulas these days are not as good as they used to be. Cutting too many corners. I'd rather pay a premium price and get something good, but I'm not a good sales model. In your spare time... Love that the three lambs can be together!
ReplyDeleteOY! Too much cuteness! I love their little sweaters. Yes - when you find spare time, let me know how you did it. I suppose you could give up sleeping and eating.
ReplyDeleteThe milking wasn't a failure though because they'll have got their colostrum, so congrats on persisting as long as you did!
ReplyDelete