Retaining Bottle Lambs as Working Sheep

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

I was talking to someone today about using bottle lambs to work. I'll be in that position this year if these two I'm nursing right now live as they'll be replacement ewes. Literally replacements as their mother is 13ish and will definitely not be bred again!

 

I've done pretty well in the past if I get the lambs on a bucket and in the pasture with the other sheep by about one month.

 

Does anyone else keep bottle babies?

[DeltaBluez Tess]

I had a bottle baby, a Sottie blackface. Her mother ate some poison and rejected the lambs (mom was ill) so I bought her and raised her. She was not the sharpest knife in the drawer since we think she got some of the poison from her mom in the womb.

 

But she sure was a great little ewe. Since she was raised by me then turned out with the flock at 45 days, she was one who was tough to move. The dogs were used to her since she was in the house but as she got older they sorta recognized her but would still try to herd her.

 

Molly would just amble along, no great rush to join the flock...sometimes (I would swear she would stop to smell a flower) and was a tough ewe to move but she would. The dogs would not grip her but actually had to use power to move her (I think they would not grip her since they knew her as a baby)...she was a fun sheep to herd....after she lambed, then the lightbulb came on and she became a great mother and ewe.

 

It was fun to see, the flock...then ten feet later Molly and then a Border Collie right behind Molly and then Ringo, the cat.....who caught grasshoppers stirred up by the sheep.

 

I think the sooner they get into the flock with the other lambs then quicker they adjust to being sheep.

 

I have an older Clun Forest (8 yrs) that was a bottle baby that I bought when she was 4 yrs old. Columbine is like the other sheep but if I am in the pasture (no dogs) she will follow me around for pets. Also when she has lambs, she proudly trots them up to me for inspection and if I don't fuss over them then she will corner me until I fuss over them. Other than that she acts like a regular ewe. The prior owners kept her in the house until she was 60 days old.

 

Good luck with your lambs...lambs are so darn cute!!!

 

Diane Pagel

[KathyF]

Hi-

 

I have a bottle lamb who is now coming up on two years of age. I only brought her into the house long enough to warm her up and jump start her. After that I set up a dog ex-pen in my barn and bottle fed her there for a week or two. Then she went back with the flock and I would walk out to the pasture to bottle feed her. She adjusted and it with the flock. She is just like a broke sheep. She is pregnant this year with her first lamb(s).

 

Kathy

[NancyO]

I had bought an older lamb that had been a bottle baby. It was a real pain to work this sheep. It would not leave you, but the other sheep you were working would. It had no flocking affinity for the other sheep. Funny thing was, gave it to someone who was going to butcher it, which didn't actually happen, but at the new place it worked fine for several months before it wouldn't stay with the rest of the flock again.

 

Guess if you had several bottle lambs, they would be great to work young dogs on.

 

Went to a trial where I had a sheep, don't know if it was a bottle lamb or not, sure worked like one. On the fetch, when it saw me at the post, it ran to me, the other sheep came down the fetch line with the dog. The drive was OK as the dog pulled the sheep off of me to move it along. As we came to the chute, I could not get the sheep off of me unless the dog was next to me. The other three sheep went in the chute, this one walked alongside the chute with me. Needless to say we did not get a shed, had considered having the dog on the same side as me, but didn't know if they would consider it a shed. Sue Asten had a fun time commentating about this run at my expense

 

NAncy O

[kajarrel]

It had no flocking affinity for the other sheep.

This has been my experience with bottle lambs we've kept too long in the house, but they do not run to us either. These are the sheep that wander off from the flock and seem not to fully understand the dogs. We don't have this issue with lambs started on a milk bar. I wouldn't start young dogs on these lambs, but experienced dogs seem to be able to handle them.

 

Kim

[cgt]

My dogs and I once got to work a bunch of yearling bummers. (A friend of mine was building up his flock by taking in free bottle lambs from various local producers.) He had about 20 of 'em. They were real friendly of course. They would come right up to you. They would do that to the dogs, too. We would enter the field and the whole mob would run over to the dog: "Let's play!". This completely unnerved the first dog I put on them. The only way I could work those sheep was to get a dog to pull a little wool. Soon they acted like regular sheep and were pretty nice to work.

 

EDIT:

Hmm... I wonder if it might be nice to have a group of such sheep around for training purposes. At trials out here your dog is often in the situation of having to "break" the sheep during the lift and fetch. The sheep might just turn and walk up to the dog as it comes in to lift - thought not in a playful way - and the dog needs to be able to say "No. Walk away." in calm but definite terms. If the dog gets some good training in early on the run might be good. Otherwise the sheep might just eat the dog's lunch. Since it is very hard to constantly have undogged range monsters to train your dog with, maybe one could use those bottle guys to help with training that?

 

charlie torre

[Sue R]

Ah, bottle babies! Our old cow, Babe, is a bottle baby and, like some of you have noticed with your lambs, she is less into being a part of the group than the others. Our old Aussie, Mac, who was raised with her, refuses to work her at all. She just ambles along at her own pace when we are moving the herd.

 

I started my young dogs primarily on two bottle-raised calves. It was just fine for starting as I was able to get near the calves when I needed to, and they were easy around the dogs.

 

However, now that I have three mother-raised heifers in with them, I find that the bottle babies are a pain! They don't want move away from me when the dogs are working, they are stand-offish about being with the three other heifers, they are very slow about moving when the dogs try to push them (they don't react to the dogs like "normal" heifers), it is hard to leave them at a spot in the field while I take the dogs somewhere else to practice an outrun (they just decide to mosey along with us), etc.

 

I did enjoy using these two for initial work with the young dogs. I didn't have to worry about them being goofy or rowdy with the young dogs, especially when doing close work in the barn. But now, they are not very helpful in the training at all. In fact, my one dog tends to ignore them and concentrate on the three that he knows will respond to him.

 

For what it's worth...

[sasten]

We've kept one bottle baby with our flock. He was raised by someone who kept him in their house and garage for 5 months. Til she came home and her garage was trashed. I had my doubts at first about bringing him back, because I knew he would be different. Turns out he's great to have around. (Lambie, of course!)

 

I never have a problem with him not sticking with the flock. When he first came back, he didn't move away from the dogs like he should, but it was a good lesson for our dogs to learn. Now he moves from them without a problem (he's 4) and he's great for the puppies cause he sticks right with you.

 

He's not tame, but is less wild than the others. I also use him for demos. He's a katadhin dorper cross and looks like a holstein, and makes a great story for the crowd.

 

If I could figure out how to put pictures in here I'd stick one in. What a dummy.

[Denise Wall]

I consider bottle lambs Nature's way of reminding you how old you are.

 

There are plenty of dogs in my house but not lambs. My barn has what I need to take care of them so I don't keep them in the house. I'm sure it's easier to feed them in the middle of the night in the house though.

 

I find there are lots of (younger) people out there who want bottle lambs to take care of. I had a set of twins I supplemented some last year but the year before that when I had a set of full time bottle twins, I let one of those eager younger people take them off my hands.

 

Edited to bring my reply back on topic. Since I don't keep them in the house and I hustle them back into the herd as soon as possible, I haven't had a problem with them being different from the others by the time they got to be adults. I remember one would show a flicker of recognition when I spoke for a month or two after I quit bottle feeding it. It looked as if it remembered something nice about me but couldn't figure out what it was. Soon that look was gone and it was just like all the others.