GRAFTING BUMMER LAMBS — HOW WE DO IT AT CALOVINE 
by Ruth Taber

     Milk replacer is very expensive. Bottle feeding bummers or orphan lambs is time consuming, and they don’t grow as well on the fake stuff. If we can graft lambs to ewes with one lamb we’ve saved money, time, and energy. Grafting is not a hard thing to do, but it can be frustrating. Some ewes are hard headed about taking on a strange lamb. It’s this personality type that takes some of the fun out of saving the money, the time and the energy. But! if you can hold your temper and see it through for a few days, you’ll be rewarded with a new mom for your bummer lamb.

     One of our best milking ewes had a beautiful set of ewe lambs. We watched them nurse, and then butt the udder, and go from teat to teat in an effort to get something to eat. We tried stripping the teats and found the ewe had no milk. What a sickening development. Thankfully, this situation doesn’t happen very often.

     We all want twins or triplets from our good producing ewes, but sometimes a ewe with one lamb can be a blessing. We had two “blessings” that became candidate mothers for the bummer lambs. The two ewes were brought to the barn and placed in stanchions. We have a home made stanchion and an aluminum stanchion purchased from DS Livestock Equipment (www.DSlivestock.com). Both work equally well, however the aluminum stanchion is portable. This is a good feature if the ewe has to be moved before the end of the grafting process. Place your stanchions in cool, comfortable pens out of direct sun. The stanchions hold the ewe’s head outside the pen and her lamb and the bummer are placed in the pen. The bummer lamb is able to nurse the ewe without being attacked. Sometimes the ewe will have to be restrained from kicking when the lambs nurse. This is done by tying her hind legs to the back wall or fence during nursing. Allow her to stand, but tie her so she can’t kick forward. You may also have to physically hold the ewe and protect the lambs for the first couple of days. It’s best to leave the ewe in the stanchion for three days before you test her. While in the stanchion, make sure the ewe has water and feed. Also, spray her with a good quality fly spray daily or as often as needed to keep the pests away. She can’t scratch, so you have to help her out as much as possible. Keep her pen clean because the manure and urine build up will be a magnet for flies. Also, make sure the lambs nurse at least twice a day to keep the ewe from getting mastitis.

     To test if the ewe will accept the bummer, release the ewe and watch to see if she attacks the bummer. If she seems to be tolerant, separate the lambs from her for several hours, then allow them to nurse. If the ewe cooperates and feeds the bummer, she’s out. If she’s nasty, she goes back in the stanchion. She must allow it to nurse. Let’s say after three days she’s out of the stanchion and passes the test. Don’t turn her out with the other ewes immediately. Allow her to stay in an enclosed area for a day to make sure she doesn’t change her mind. Before you turn them out, mark the bummer lamb with a crayon so you can keep an eye on it. It's obvious if you have a starving lamb. They straggle behind and look pathetic. Initially the ewe may be struggling to keep enough milk flowing to feed two babies. In this case supplement the bummer once or twice a day with milk replacer.

     We’ve done grafting over the years and (as yet) have never had a failure. Sometimes it takes a little longer depending upon the personality of the ewe. The first day they’ll act like they’re being killed, but will settle down after awhile. Don’t give up if the ewe acts like she’s demon possessed. We had one like that who turned out to be a sweet mother to the bummer lamb. Grafting is worth the effort to have your lambs out on pasture and out of your hair.

HAPPY SHEPHERDING!

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