Rejected lambs loosing vigour and feeding less

[Dan Attle]

Hi all got a couple of rejected lambs feeding them 4 times a day on the bottle but they seem to always slow feeding and each time feed less and less till they eventually loose the battle
Wonder if anything I could do to get them back on track before I loose another one

 

[GTB]

Are you giving them too much milk? Best to keep them slightly hungry IME.

 

[Dan Attle]

I’ll perhaps try missing out the 6am feed and feed at lunch

 

[Old Boar]

I would feed the same number times, just less amount each feed. I find gently tickling under the tail also gives them a higher suck reflex (as the mum would clean them up when sucking, so you are copying nature).

 

[yellowbelly]

As above, I'd give them a bit less per feed.
Try holding the bottle so your thumb is over their nose....

(Sorry for poor pic but I've just taken it in the poor light of the lambing shed)
When they drink from a ewe they press their nose against the skin of her bag. Try to mimic nature (as @Old Boar says) by letting them feel the skin of your thumb. Your fingers will be under the bottom jaw and you can lift them up and down to make the jaws work on the teat.

Some will take a while to get the hang of it, you just have to persist and ring the changes 'til you find something that works. Mrs YB has a selection of big teats, small teats, soft teats, hard teats (well, not her personally, you understand but in the cade department stores)

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Much like rearing calves and as above, you have to mimic nature, try to keep the teat down low at the height they would drink off mum
If it's too high or horizontal it will bypass their oesophageal groove and give them a belly ache, I try to latch them on and then lower the end of the teat to get them down on their knees before they learn to drink with their heads up.
You see the same with calves on feeders where rearers hang the feeders on top of the gate and then spend a small fortune trying to fix scours and wonder why they always have calves die

I made up this bottle rack for feeding a bunch at once and it seems to hold the bottle on a good angle