Procedural Writing

Have you ever heard of a Pet Day? At our school we have one every year and this is when all of us, kids make a pet project on our pet and then we bring our to pet to school! We have a set of tasks for our pet projects like, Procedural Writing and a 3D Creation. For the procedural writing we had to write about things like how to look after or train your pet. Here is my procedural writing!

How To Feed A Newly Born Lamb

Equipment:

• 330 ml Transparent Bottle

• One Medium Sized Jug

• A Big Round Plastic Jar

• Lamb teat

• A Patient Attitude

If you are thinking about orphaning a lamb I have all the top tips on how to feed it properly!

The one thing that any animal needs is food and water and that is exactly what a lamb needs as well. When lambs are born they need warm milk for food and their mother easily gives it to them but its a whole different story when orphaning one. First you need to get your 330 ml transparent bottle and take the lid off it and screw the lamb teat on, ( if not the right size you have to get a new one.) 

Now you have a so-called “lamb bottle,” that you will feed the lamb with. If there is a little hole in the hard outside part of the teat that screws around the bottle then you have to make sure it is always closest to the sky otherwise you might lose some milk! The easiest way to warm up the milk is to full up ¾ of a jug, flick the switch and then pour the hot water into the big round plastic jar. 

If your lamb is newly born then you should only fill your lamb bottle up to about halfway not any more than that otherwise the lamb will drink too much. Put the lamb bottle into the hot water jar and wait until it is nice and warm ( if it is too hot rinse the bottle with cold water until you get your desired temperature.) A good way to check the temperature is to squirt a little bit onto your finger and that will tell if its too hot or still cold or just right. 

When warm, quietly walk over to your lamb and put one of your fingers in its mouth on top of its tongue. Then if it’s hungry it will start to suck on your finger because it will think it is the mum’s teat. Slowly transfer your lamb bottle’s teat into the lambs mouth to where your finger laid, get your free hand and put your fingers on top of its nose and your thumb under its chin. 

Then when the teat is safely secure in the lamb’s mouth you have to start pushing up and down with your fingers and your thumb, ( it will not hurt the lamb and will help it learn how to drink and it will get some milk out.) Keep doing that until the lamb starts to suck on it by itself.When feeding your lamb, milk, you have to have the bottle on a good angle. If you have it straight up it will come down too fast and it will choke the lamb. So you need to hold it on an angle where milk still comes out and there are bubbles coming out which means the lamb can still breath in air. Once there is only a little bit left tip it right up so the lamb can drink the last of it. 

A lamb is fill when it starts to breath differently, it will be bulging and a sign that you have feed it too much is shaking ( which you DO NOT want!) Normally don’t feed it to this stage because it only needs to be a bit chubby for it to have a good feed. When there is no milk left, remember to take it out of the lamb’s mouth right away otherwise the lamb could suck in too much air and get sick. Feed your lamb about every two hours if your lamb is newly born. Once it gets older it can eat lamb nuts, grass and it will have less and less milk until it is weaned off it. Make sure to clean your lamb bottle with hot water every time you use it because young lambs can pick up tummy bugs.

Just be aware that the lamb can still squirt milk at you, your clothes and it really hurts if you get milk in your eyes so I don’t recommend wearing your good clothes while feeding a lamb! When you put your finger into the lamb’s mouth you need to watch out for it’s teeth because it might decide to bite you. Lambs hooves are as hard as rock so make sure you keep a safe distance from them as well.

I hope you have learnt some new things about how to feed a newly born orphan lamb.