Creep feeding lambs

[Nithsdale]

So there's currently around 100-110 SuffolkX lambs (and the odd Texel) with another 15-20 hopefully to come. Been toying with the idea of creeping these but I'm a total newbie to creeping young lambs, so a couple questions;

How big a creep feeder would i need for this number of lambs - would a 4ft double sided be big enough?

What is the best thing to feed them? Do i need to spend a bloody fortune on fancy lamb creep at £300/t?!

 

[Northeastfarmer]

Oats and soya

 

[Nithsdale]

Oats and soya

How much Soya? I have a huge heap of bruised barley in the shed already

 

[Northeastfarmer]

How much Soya? I have a huge heap of bruised barley in the shed already

I'm afraid I bag all mine up so I put two shovels of soya in a bag of barley
Obviously you'll have to be more careful feeding barley ad lib over oats

 

[Nithsdale]

Aye, theyl need onto it gently... but if it's sitting in the shed I'd be best using it

 

[Wishful Thinker]

I don't think 4ft double is big enough. Probably need 8ft

 

[harperfarmer]

Get an 8ft double sided. Should be big enough for that number but we might put two in for 100+ lambs when they're really motoring through it. Might not get enough in a single feeder to last them 24hrs. We mix a 16% lamb pellet with our ewe home mix 50/50 (barley oats and wheat plus soya). That puts our creep at approximately £185/tonne as fed. Get them out asap it's surprising how soon they will start eating it.

 

[tepapa]

How quick will they take to oats and soya? Is it best to start them on some pellets for young lambs and transfer them over. ?
Changed the ewes over from pellets to oats/ soya and there not fussed eating it at all where they would go mad for nuts.

 

[tepapa]

Definately go for bigger than 4' creep or two smaller ones for 100+ lambs. Young lambs wont go too far from mum and a feeder either end of field will give them more opportunity to find it and eat when young.

 

[Downton_shep]

As said above, probably need to start them on creep pellets first to get them used to it.

 

[irish dom]

Does it ever pay? Cost of meal and labour against improved gain from lambs. Not being smart but i could never see it making sense for me anyway. Would be interested to hear peoples thoughts on it

 

[harperfarmer]

Ours always start nibbling the home mix we trough feed the ewes with. They go onto the 50/50 mix no problems because of this. Never had to feed straight pellets to get them eating before now.

 

[exmoor dave]

Does it ever pay? Cost of meal and labour against improved gain from lambs. Not being smart but i could never see it making sense for me anyway. Would be interested to hear peoples thoughts on it

I think it all comes down to the farm you run, we've been creeping our feb lambs for a few year's and it works for us (after prescribing to the grass only bible for years) mainly because we're a very dry farm, lambs are the only stock we can trade away as the farm drys out- it's a race to destock here from late may onwards!
So creeping is abit of a insurance policy for us.
We're also all permanent pasture so what we aren't spending on reseeding is being spent on feed I spose.

The big difference to when we were just grass finishing the feb lambs is that we seemed to hit a ceiling of about 42kg, anything more seemed to be a struggle, they'd just run to fat instead.
Yet with some feed we can go to 44-46kg comfortable and stay (mostly) in spec.

 

[neilo]

I think it all comes down to the farm you run, we've been creeping our feb lambs for a few year's and it works for us (after prescribing to the grass only bible for years) mainly because we're a very dry farm, lambs are the only stock we can trade away as the farm drys out- it's a race to destock here from late may onwards!
So creeping is abit of a insurance policy for us.
We're also all permanent pasture so what we aren't spending on reseeding is being spent on feed I spose.

The big difference to when we were just grass finishing the feb lambs is that we seemed to hit a ceiling of about 42kg, anything more seemed to be a struggle, they'd just run to fat instead.
Yet with some feed we can go to 44-46kg comfortable and stay (mostly) in spec.

+1 I had a ram customer that was a predominantly arable unit but with an old airfield in the middle of the farm. They ran 700 ewes on the airfield bit, lambing in Feb and feeding/creeping hard to get all the lambs away before it burnt up to nothing in July. You can only make the best of what you have.

@Nithsdale Farmer , would it be interesting to run at least some of those Suffolk X lambs on the same system as the rest of your flock? That's the only way you'll see how they compare with what you're already using, unless you are aiming to move to a creep fed system anyway.

 

[Man_in_black]

Does it ever pay? Cost of meal and labour against improved gain from lambs. Not being smart but i could never see it making sense for me anyway. Would be interested to hear peoples thoughts on it

I think a lot will depend when you lamb. Early lamber (no grass) to catch early market you'd hope it'd pay. Lambing mid April I just don't see the point, buts that's on my land.

 

[Ysgythan]

So there's currently around 100-110 SuffolkX lambs (and the odd Texel) with another 15-20 hopefully to come. Been toying with the idea of creeping these but I'm a total newbie to creeping young lambs, so a couple questions;

How big a creep feeder would i need for this number of lambs - would a 4ft double sided be big enough?

What is the best thing to feed them? Do i need to spend a bloody fortune on fancy lamb creep at £300/t?!

Buy a few. I'd say three or four for that amount and top up regularly.

If you have barley buy bog standard creep pellets and feed 50:50.

 

[hillman]

Does it ever pay? Cost of meal and labour against improved gain from lambs. Not being smart but i could never see it making sense for me anyway. Would be interested to hear peoples thoughts on it

As above believed grass only was way forward, this yr creep feeder going out for lambs born now , looking at it and hoping a little will go along way now compared to autumn and trying to finish off ,and a lot doing a little !
it also depends on your stocking demand throughout the yr if not under pressure why would you , I suppose it's a management tool , I don't think cost wise there is a lot of difference, costs money to keep lambs till Xmas / new yr aswell

 

[yellowbelly]

How big a creep feeder would i need for this number of lambs - would a 4ft double sided be big enough?

I'd say you'd need two 8' double sided feeders.

How much Soya? I have a huge heap of bruised barley in the shed already

750kg barley @ £120/te...................£90
240kg soya @ £350/te???...............£84
10kg mins/vits @£17.50/25kg...........£7
per tonne...(18% protein)..................£181

We are currently using a whole barley/protein pellet mix to get an 18% ration that works out at £160.50/te

If you're still feeding the ewes on that barley/soya mix, all the better, as the lambs will start nibbling at it alongside their mothers.It encourages them to eat it.
Get the creeps out ASAP - the sooner the better as it will be a while before the lambs start to take it in any quantity.
Don't put too much in the creeps for a start - they like it fresh. Keep increasing daily as they eat more. By about 5 or 6 weeks they could be eating 0.3kg(0.75lbs) a day. FCR will be really good and growth rates from the ewes milk, the creep and the really good spring grass will be in the region of 0.4 - 0.5kg of DLWG.

WARNING You are now entering into a high input system!!!!!
The success of this scenario hinges on the price of NS lambs in May/June. This is NOT ALWAYS enough to make it worthwhile - it certainly wasn't in 2016
It's anybody's guess where it will be this year - a lot of hoggs still to come to flood an already depressed market (from now until well after a lot of springers will be ready), Brexit fallout, exchange rates, NZ/Aussie imports, etc, etc. Welcome to farming's equivalent of Gamblers Anonymous. Creep feeding lambs needs a warning attached to it, just like in the betting world.................
......................................

IMHO 40kg lambs in May need to be worth over £100 (ie more than 250p/kg LW) and look like this............

Best of luck @Nithsdale Farmer - we're all going to need it.

 

[gatepost]

I creep the feb lambs, just have a few for cash flow, and peds up to scanning. I would stick with pellets at least to start with, less chance of stomach upset which is catastrophic as you loose all the advantage but retain the cost, big difference in pellets though, tried quite a lot of different ones, got on well with Mole valley and Northwest feeds.

 

[exmoor dave]

I creep the feb lambs, just have a few for cash flow, and peds up to scanning. I would stick with pellets at least to start with, less chance of stomach upset which is catastrophic as you loose all the advantage but retain the cost, big difference in pellets though, tried quite a lot of different ones, got on well with Mole valley and Northwest feeds.

+1 for mvf creep pellets