After all the animals have been fed at barn duty, we then get to do other barn chores that need to be done that day. Sometimes those can be fun chores or the not so fun chores that still have to be done.
The other night we got to process one of the lambs that was born earlier that afternoon. Since in animal handling class we give injections to the lambs and dock their tails, we don't do that during barn duty, because that is for the handling classes. So instead we get to weigh the lambs, treat the mothers and feed the lambs. To treat the mothers we inject them with oxytocin intra-muscularly near the vulva. We inject intra-muscularly because then the medication, or hormone in this case, will start to take effect quickly. Oxytocin is injected into the mothers to encourage milk let down and smooth contractions so that the placenta can be passed.
Colostrum is essential to all animals in our barn within the first 24 hours of life, because the digestive system is not fully developed yet so then the colostrum and the antibodies it contains can be absorbed into the body. With that in mind, we feed each lamb colostrum via a feeding tube so that we are certain they got enough colostrum. I got to pass the feeding tube of one of the lambs the other night and then feed it the colostrum!
The lamb below has a splint on its front right leg, because it was born with some complications.Its legs and muscles are all messed up. The front right is hyper extended and the front left is rotated inwards like a club foot. When the lamb was born it couldn't walk or move at all, but with the split it is starting to make progress and we are hoping that the legs will fix themselves. We are not sure if this little guy will make it but we have hope.
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