Sometimes a ewe is unable to take care of her lambs. For instance, she may not have enough milk for all of her lambs, especially if she has three lambs instead of her usual twins. Unfortunately, a ewe may also on occasion die after giving birth, leaving orphan lambs. All lambs need warm milk every two hours when they are first born. This provides a feeding challenge for the bottle lambs, meaning shifts must be taken for nightly feedings.
Most lambs take to the bottle quickly.
In nature, to ensure a full meal is taken, the mother ewe will nudge the back of the lamb's tail while it is nursing to stimulate it to continue nursing . A few times we have had a stubborn bottle lamb that decides it does not like the rubber nipple on the bottle. When this happens, you must cuddle the lamb and scratch its back end while placing the bottle in their mouth. This encourages them to continue drinking from the bottle. Our bottle lambs have always ended up as pets.