How to Build a Lamb Bar

How to Build a Lamb Bar. If you plan to take care of several baby lambs, it can be exhausting and time-consuming to feed each lamb with a bottle. A mother sheep can provide only so much milk to her lambs, so it's important to have an alternate system in place to take care of the lambs’ needs. A lamb bar is a food delivery system that can feed multiple lambs at once. You can get the parts needed to build a 16-position lamb bar from a hardware or convenience store.

Things Needed

• Power drill and drill bit
• 2 4-by-4-inch wooden posts, 4 feet long
• Shovel
• 6 2-inch wood screws
• Level
• One 2-by-4-inch piece of wood, 8 feet long
• 4 square plastic buckets with metal handles
• 16 baby bottle nipples with screw-on caps
• Rubber cement

Step 1

Find a spot on your property with room to set up an 8-foot-long lamb bar. This spot should also be a place where the lambs naturally gather.

Step 2

Dig 2 holes, about 2 feet deep, with your shovel, and place a post in each hole. Fill in the hole with dirt and rocks so the posts are solid.

Step 3

Turn the 2-by-4-inch piece of wood so the 4-inch side is facing you. Drill a pilot hole on each end of the 2-by-4. Drive a wood screw into each hole and mount each end to the front of the wooden posts. Use a level to mount the wood evenly. The lamb bar should now look like a fence.

Step 4

Place 4 wood screws at evenly spaced intervals along the lamb bar. The buckets will hang from these screws.

Step 5

Drill a hole 1 inch above the bottom of one bucket toward the center. Make the hole large enough for the baby bottle nipple to fit through but not the screw-on cap. Drill a hole of the same size, in the same position, on the other 3 sides of the bucket.

Step 6

Repeat the drilling process for the other buckets.

Step 7

Brush the inside of the bucket where the screw-on caps meets the inside wall with a small amount of rubber cement. Brush some rubber cement on the upper portion of the screw-on cap that comes in contact with the plastic bucket. Insert the baby bottle feeder into the hole from the inside of the bucket and hold for 20 seconds until rubber cement has taken hold. Repeat this process for the other 15 feeders.

Step 8

Set the buckets out to dry for at least 2 hours.

Step 9

Hang the buckets on the screws of the lamb bar and fill them with milk. Gravity will force the milk downward to the baby bottle nipples.

Warnings

• By placing the feeding nipples near the bottom of the bucket, you ensure that most of the milk is available for consumption.
• Clean buckets and feeding nipples thoroughly after each use to keep the lamb bar sanitary.

References

• The Goat Spot: How to Make a Lamb Bar Feeder; September 2011