🍼 Lamb

A lamb is a baby sheep. Like a calf or a kid, it is born with almost no protection against disease. It gets this protection from colostrum, the mother's first thick milk. Colostrum has many antibodies, that is, proteins that fight infections. A newborn's gut can absorb them only in the first hours of life, so the lamb must feed as soon as possible.

For the first weeks, a lamb lives almost only on its mother's milk. Lambs up to 4–6 weeks old that still suckle their mother are called milk lambs. Little by little, the lamb starts to nibble grass and eat extra feed. This makes the rumen grow — the large part of the stomach that digests grass.

Lambs are usually weaned off milk at 60–90 days old. Many farmers look not only at age but also at weight: the lamb should weigh 2.5–3 times as much as at birth. Sometimes lambs stay with their mother longer, up to 4–6 months.