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even newborn lambs drink from bottles!  

post #1 of 16
9/3/08 at 6:47am
Thread Starter 
so i feel like this made me irrationally angry earlier today but it really rubbed me the wrong way. me and ds were hanging out playing on the floor and i had the tv turned to this baby first channel which i usually dont mind b/c it has songs and stuff we can sing a long to but at this particular time it was playing somme show about a farm and a talking tractor. In the show you see that two lambs were just born and they ooo and ahh over it you know ok fine but then they go on about how the lambs are hungry and bring out these two big bottles at the annoying little talking tractor feeds the lambs from the bottles and they talk about how hungry they are and how much they love the bottles. then they go off and do other things and the lose the lambs and find them hanging out with the cow so they want the tractor to take them back and he says no b/c they arent wearing diapers (???) but they trick him into it anyway and when they are back the lambs talk about how hungry they are and one says hes so hungry he wants two whole bottles! and then they go on to talk about how much the lambs love milk from bottles and show pictures of the tractor feeding them bottles and some farmer lady feeding them bottles... etc.

what is up with that? i was really shocked that they didnt show the sheep nursing the lambs.. on most childrens shows i see the baby animals nurse but they went weirdly out of their way to emphasize the bottle thing. i am not normally inclined to write letter to people but i really got the urge while i was watching this jsut because it seemed so ridiculous.
post #2 of 16
9/3/08 at 3:26pm
that is annoying! I mean, sometimes my inlaws have to bottle feed calves nbecause mom rejects them, but it's not the norm...most happily nurse.

I was annoyed at kids tv yesterday as well, a meercat puppet was babysitting his baby sister and when she cried, he tried giving her a bottle several times. His mom was just inside the house (lol, not realistic jungle life!) cause he went to ask her what to do and she said "Did you try the bottle?" I am still considering writing a letter - it was on publicly funded tv (Canadian Broadcasting Corp)

All this and then I wonder why in the midst of a tantrum the other day, my three year old yelled "I want a bottle!" (he was offered and refused a bottle of EBM once in his life - at 3.5 months old while I was out for a couple of hours!)
post #3 of 16
9/3/08 at 6:53pm
While they should have shown nursing sheep as well, the lambs they were bottle feeding were probably rejected by their mothers and were not removed from suckling.

It's apparently a fairly common thing in sheep. Someone who runs a farm could give more details. I think one reason that it happens is when there is a twin birth.

Wait, it was a cartoon or something? And both lambs were bottle fed? Um... not cool.
post #4 of 16
9/3/08 at 7:03pm
uhm, it was a show with a tlaking tractor? I assume it wasn't live action sheep, but cartoon sheep, yes?

Really, how else WOULD a talking tractor feed a baby sheep? LOL!
post #5 of 16
9/3/08 at 7:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1littlebit View Post
so i feel like this made me irrationally angry earlier today but it really rubbed me the wrong way. me and ds were hanging out playing on the floor and i had the tv turned to this baby first channel which i usually dont mind b/c it has songs and stuff we can sing a long to but at this particular time it was playing somme show about a farm and a talking tractor. In the show you see that two lambs were just born and they ooo and ahh over it you know ok fine but then they go on about how the lambs are hungry and bring out these two big bottles at the annoying little talking tractor feeds the lambs from the bottles and they talk about how hungry they are and how much they love the bottles. then they go off and do other things and the lose the lambs and find them hanging out with the cow so they want the tractor to take them back and he says no b/c they arent wearing diapers (???) but they trick him into it anyway and when they are back the lambs talk about how hungry they are and one says hes so hungry he wants two whole bottles! and then they go on to talk about how much the lambs love milk from bottles and show pictures of the tractor feeding them bottles and some farmer lady feeding them bottles... etc.

what is up with that? i was really shocked that they didnt show the sheep nursing the lambs.. on most childrens shows i see the baby animals nurse but they went weirdly out of their way to emphasize the bottle thing. i am not normally inclined to write letter to people but i really got the urge while i was watching this jsut because it seemed so ridiculous.
Well, I have relatives that raise sheep and they avoid bottles at all costs. If one baby sheep is rejected by the mother, they try to trick the next sheep giving birth to a singleton into thinking it is theirs (a "twin") by covering it in birth fluids. It works sometimes! Don't know if that's relevant, but that's how real sheep farmers do it!
post #6 of 16
9/3/08 at 9:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BananaBreadGirl View Post
Well, I have relatives that raise sheep and they avoid bottles at all costs. If one baby sheep is rejected by the mother, they try to trick the next sheep giving birth to a singleton into thinking it is theirs (a "twin") by covering it in birth fluids. It works sometimes! Don't know if that's relevant, but that's how real sheep farmers do it!
Cool! I'd just read that sometimes bottle-feeding is unavoidable, but really, on a working farm, who'd have time to bottle-feed a lamb if a ewe can be made to do the job?
post #7 of 16
9/4/08 at 10:50am
Thread Starter 
that is really cool! how would sheep even exist if none of them nursed? i wonder why the mom would reject them does anyone know?
post #8 of 16
9/4/08 at 12:18pm
Quote:
really, on a working farm, who'd have time to bottle-feed a lamb if a ewe can be made to do the job?
Well, you'd just have the talking tractor take care of it, of course!

post #9 of 16
9/4/08 at 1:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1littlebit View Post
that is really cool! how would sheep even exist if none of them nursed? i wonder why the mom would reject them does anyone know?
I read that if a lamb is taken away from it's mother within 30 minutes of being born they can never bond and the mother will reject it. There was a very technical explanation I can't precisely recall. It had something to do with hormones....
i think the book was called 'Making Babies'.
post #10 of 16
9/4/08 at 3:47pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by BaBaBa View Post
I read that if a lamb is taken away from it's mother within 30 minutes of being born they can never bond and the mother will reject it. There was a very technical explanation I can't precisely recall. It had something to do with hormones....
i think the book was called 'Making Babies'.
why would someone take a lamb that young away from its mothere? that seems a tad unnecessary. kwim?


the tractor sings too....
post #11 of 16
9/6/08 at 7:19pm
It's crap like this that makes me so happy my kids don't watch tv. Bottle fed animals, talking tractors? That's insane.
post #12 of 16
9/6/08 at 8:03pm
That seems REALLY odd to me.....
post #13 of 16
9/6/08 at 8:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sapphire_chan View Post
Cool! I'd just read that sometimes bottle-feeding is unavoidable, but really, on a working farm, who'd have time to bottle-feed a lamb if a ewe can be made to do the job?
When I visited a farm with my kids last year, all the lambs were bottle fed. I was because the tour leader explained to all the kids (we homeschool but there was a school group there) that the lambs were taken from their mothers and given bottles after the first few days because 'it is far healthier for them'.

The kids all got to bottle feed a lamb - there were at least 40 lambs there - whcih was fun, but I felt sad for all the school group, as I doubt very much if anyone then challenged their thinking about how lamb 'formula' could possibly be better for the lambs than their mothers' milk. Of course, my kids had that discussion, but we're far from mainstream.
post #14 of 16
9/7/08 at 12:01am
I didn't watch the rest of a show about an animal shelter because they gave newborn kitties bottles "so mom could have some rest". . . .
post #15 of 16
9/8/08 at 10:05pm
fwiw

I grew up on a cattle ranch and there have been many times we've had to bottle feed a calf b/c either a mother rejected the baby or the mother died or we had one cow in particular that could never feed her calves and the only reason we kept her was b/c she was a pet (she aws abandoned by her mother) and so almsot every year we had one or two we had to feed. Of course from a kids pov it was like : but my parents hated it and always threatened to sell Candy (the one who was a horrible mother). But it does happen. Who knew some cows can't breastfeed but some just can't.
post #16 of 16
9/10/08 at 5:19am
I grew up on a farm and while we had to bottle feed lambs, it was avoided as much as possible. Bottle fed lambs don't thrive like nursing lambs do and they absolutely have to get colostrum soon after they are born or they have very little chance (antibodies don't, in general, cross a sheep's placenta so the newborns are extremely vulnerable). We used to milk the colostrum of sheep that had lots and just one lamb and freeze it so that it would be on hand if a newborn lamb really needed it.
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Mothering › Forums › Breastfeeding › Lactivism › even newborn lambs drink from bottles!