The power of colostrum

Last Monday morning I awoke to Tyler shouting upstairs at 5:00 am saying: "We have triplets come quick".  I ran outside where Tyler explained that one was up with it mother, one seemed pretty cold and wasn't yet up and a third was flat out and barely alive.  Tyler had put the two cold lambs in a box he made this fall that is insulated and has a heater going  to keep the water in our second barn from freezing.  It's about 3ft x 4ft and really warm when the heater is turned on as high as it can go.  Now, with lambs, the critical thing is first, that their mother licks them off to warm them a little, next, they need to get up and drink.  It became pretty clear on that -32C morning what the difference can be from a lamb that gets it's mother's attention (the first one born), gets up and drinks, vs a lamb that does not.  After calling my Mom in a panic at 5:30 in the morning for some advice, she said the most important thing you can do is get warm colostrum into them.  you need to warm them from the inside out.  After that, try to keep the lamb warm and let the colostrum do the work.  Tyler and I milked some rich colostrum from the ewe and stomach tubed the two cold little lambs.  The one that wasn't quite as cold seemed to get better after about a half an hour so we brought her back and put her with her mother.  That is another important factor - if the lambs are away too long from their mothers, they sometimes will reject them.  Lucky for us, she did not.  By this time, Tyler had to head to work.  I stayed a bit longer in the warm box with the lamb on my lap - figuring that was warmer than the cold cement.  It did manage to awkwardly sway it's head a couple of times, but was still basically lying flat on its side with little movement.  After about another half hour, I decided that it was not getting warmer fast enough.  I thought, maybe I should bring it in to the house.  I remember my Mom and Dad telling stories of having cold lambs beside the wood stove or the oven to warm them up.  Keeping in the back of my mind that the longer it took to warm the lamb, the less likely his mother would take him back.  So, i put it in my jacket and ran for the house.  I have an electric blanket and decided I would put it on that.  After laying down towels and Tyler's barn clothes not to ruin my new electric blanket, I set the lamb on it.  After doing some quick research, I discovered that I could give the lamb a bit more than I had given it the first time.  I went out to get more colostrum from the ewe and stomach tubed the lamb some more.  This time, it was amazing, in 15 minutes the lamb was bleating as if to call its mother, and trying to get up!  I then poured what was left of the colostrum into a bottle, warmed it and he drank every last bit of it.  I gave the lamb a few more minutes and told him he had had enough of the human life and was headed back to the barn.  By this point, I was fully expecting the mother to reject him, but to my surprise, she didn't!  By this point, the first lamb was bouncing around, the second was up wandering around and drinking and the third was wobbly but up.  I made sure he got a drink from his mother and then let them be.  I am happy to say that one week later, with the help of an extra bottle twice a day, they all seem to be doing well.  So far, we have had 6 lambs in the last week.  Twins, triplets and a single and are expecting 12 more to lamb in the next month.