NWF Ewe Rolls

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Alternatively, only buy from companies that are prepared to give a full ingredients list, so you can make a choice as to whether you are willing to accept any of those fillers. I'd question how much cheaper it is, once you buy in straights (in small loads), cost in your time of peeing about mixing it, don't forget to include the cost of the minerals, and the convenience of a nut/roll that can be fed on the floor. I dare say you can save a small amount, but a tenner a ton doesn't get me excited on the tonnage most sheep farmers will be using.

I get your point, but Soya remains the best source of DUP, and the quantity sheep farmers will be using is miniscule compared to other industries, including the ones making veggie 'meat' replicas.

No. You order what you want, the mill/store mix it to what you want and then deliver it in bulk same as a blend. They even mineralise it for us.
There's no messing about mixing.
I feed it on the ground outside no problems - I appreciate that wouldn't work in a shed, though and you'd need to use troughs.

The only thing I do is add liquid feed because it's a Rumenco product, stores/mills don't supply/offer it... 10mins a week mixing a batch isn't any hardship.
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
my other half went to that meeting - came away very dislusioned with the soya being rammed out as the only way.
and yeah it seemed it was only aimed at the indoor feeders rather than an actual sheep farmer..(wahaay for doing it outdoors)
Dont waste time going to those sorts of meeting then.
Do you feed conc. To your ewes lambing outside?
If you do try to find one consisting of rapeseed meal for protein , barley for energy, oats to add 'fill' and fibre, plus all the vits mins and something (except sodium bicarbonate ) for antacid. (y)
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
No. You order what you want, the mill/store mix it to what you want and then deliver it in bulk same as a blend. They even mineralise it for us.
There's no messing about mixing.
I feed it on the ground outside no problems - I appreciate that wouldn't work in a shed, though and you'd need to use troughs.

The only thing I do is add liquid feed because it's a Rumenco product, stores/mills don't supply/offer it... 10mins a week mixing a batch isn't any hardship.
That sounds like what Harpers Feeds will do / supply.,used to be called Harpers home mix.
http://www.hhmix.co.uk/

..........big pic of ewe withits head in a bucket :oops::facepalm::)
 
Last edited:

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Dont waste time going to those sorts of meeting then.

Nobody knew what the meeting would be, other than about pre-lambing nutrition and John Vipond was doing it. It was for several local Farming Connect discussion groups.

Always interesting to see trial results imo, especially for things that you wouldn’t necessarily easily try yourself. I do agree that the current nutritional advice is probably outdated, and based on principles dreamt up many decades ago. Do sheep really need a 18% ration, or is far lower just as useful? Are we complementing forage, or replacing it?
 
I got 15ton of them in the spring, was cheaper than anything up here, Davidson etc, 19% nugget, and the sheep milked fine, no problems, just phoned that Irish lady and she did the wrest, l had never used it before but l will be using it this spring again.
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
That sounds like what Harpers Feeds will do / supply.

A feed company isn't worth dealing with, if they can't supply what you want/need, IMO.
Too many people ask what these companies have got, instead of what they will do...

I'm maybe a bit spoiled by Solway Agriculture/Laurmar - it's 2 massive WW2 Hangars. 1 is the Trident store of Beet Pulp where all their bagging plant. The other is just bunker after bunker of straights. Loading shovel and telehandler they'll mix anything you want, nothing is an issue to them and it's just 20mins away in the tractor.
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
I do agree that the current nutritional advice is probably outdated, and based on principles dreamt up many decades ago. Do sheep really need a 18% ration, or is far lower just as useful? Are we complementing forage, or replacing it?


IME no, we have dropped to 16% with no detrimental effects



Edit;

I should say the drop in protein was at same time as when I switched to incorporating the liquid feed... so the feed now is much more complete, tailored to what the ewes need, than it used to be.
 

Whitepeak

Member
Livestock Farmer
Wasn't there some work done a few years ago that you didn't need soya to supply DUP for the ewes. I remember as I was doing a talk on ewe nutrition and had a couple of slides on it, then my next slide was a new product that was mainly soya :X3:
Beef and dairy are currently under quite a bit of pressure to reduce soya use, so I think sheep will come under the spotlight very soon as well. Particularly when sheep claim to be more forage based than cattle.
 

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
Makes me laugh or is that cringe that the benefit of feeding soya to replace the DUP, that used to be supplied by fishmeal, has been going on since fish meal was banned and yet they still have to push the benefits. How long does it take for farmers to adopt new thinking? One decade or two? :unsure:
 
I have to laugh, everyone on here are always going on about overheads, but if something is cheap, then it's rubbish, ferguson, harbro, East cost viners are all far to expensive and probably not any better, folk have said for years Davidson has all the rubbish of the day in it, lm sure pye had cakes, biscuits in it and that cake was good especially there lmb finisher.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I have to laugh, everyone on here are always going on about overheads, but if something is cheap, then it's rubbish, ferguson, harbro, East cost viners are all far to expensive and probably not any better, folk have said for years Davidson has all the rubbish of the day in it, lm sure pye had cakes, biscuits in it and that cake was good especially there lmb finisher.

No, but a lot of the ingredients in some of the cheaper blends tend to be of little value in a sheep feed. Anything with sky high levels of fibre, are literally full of cr*p. Fibre is far cheaper to supply in that bale you put in front of them, rather than in a bought in concentrate.
Many of the high quality ingredients, are unfortunately the dearest too, hence their inclusion rates in cheaper rations are far lower.

As discussed above, in lamb ewes require good levels of DUP (not just CP), and the best source of that is soya (or sopralin), which is around £340/t iirc. Rapemeal can supply DUP too, but far less of it proportionally, and with a poorer amino acid profile. Decent rates of inclusion of an expensive ingredient will either increase the price of the feed, or reduce the compounder’s margin (guess which).

Pye may well have used bakery & confectionary waste in their finishing rations. It’s good stuff for finishing, high in sugar & starch. Not necessarily what you want for in-lamb ewes though, unless you have a diet very low in energy.
 
This is the ration I have had done for a few lambs I have left.

Whole Barley 40%
SBP 17.5%
Maize distillers 10%
Flakes maize 10%
Wheatfeed 6.5%
Flaked peas/beans 7.5%
Molasses 3.5%
Hi pro 2.5%
Minerals 2.5%

14% crude protein.
 

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
This is the ration I have had done for a few lambs I have left.

Whole Barley 40%
SBP 17.5%
Maize distillers 10%
Flakes maize 10%
Wheatfeed 6.5%
Flaked peas/beans 7.5%
Molasses 3.5%
Hi pro 2.5%
Minerals 2.5%

14% crude protein.
I take it high pro is soya? Do they need the soya? There isn't any demand for DUP in their diet so could the soya be swapped for another protein source that the rumen bugs could use?
Of course it could be a high protein blend in which case it'll be fine.
 
I take it high pro is soya? Do they need the soya? There isn't any demand for DUP in their diet so could the soya be swapped for another protein source that the rumen bugs could use?
Of course it could be a high protein blend in which case it'll be fine.
I could possibly drop the soya and beans altogether if I can get them eating brewers grains. Lambs are a bit funny with them to start with I find. I once had a feed with a lot of rapemeal in it and lambs didn’t like it so I steer away from this now. I am no expert just trying something a little different this year away from pellets
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

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