Creep feeding

[Swaley]

Hello all,
I breed a few mule gimmer lambs and sell them at the gimmer lamb sale at the back end, I usually feed them for 2 month prior to sale and that gives them abit of growth but I would like to sell them at one of the earlier sales so I was thinking creep feeding the lambs would it help, I also thought i could try and get the wethers away fat, also anyone who creep feeds how much feed do lambs eat average when on adlib. Would like to here your opinions.
Many thanks all.

 

[Anymulewilldo]

Hello all,
I breed a few mule gimmer lambs and sell them at the gimmer lamb sale at the back end, I usually feed them for 2 month prior to sale and that gives them abit of growth but I would like to sell them at one of the earlier sales so I was thinking creep feeding the lambs would it help, I also thought i could try and get the wethers away fat, also anyone who creep feeds how much feed do lambs eat average when on adlib. Would like to here your opinions.
Many thanks all.

It won’t do your mule gimmer lambs any good long term if they are on creep for a long time. Whoever buys them will watch them go like water down a drain. 2 months should be more than enough to show their potential. If they still need more I suggest looking at the breeding before just throwing lots of creep feed at them. I’ve bought creep fed lambs in the past, the vendors names are on a list in the office so that I don’t buy from them again. And it’s not just me that works that way...

 

[Herb9]

It won’t do your mule gimmer lambs any good long term if they are on creep for a long time. Whoever buys them will watch them go like water down a drain. 2 months should be more than enough to show their potential. If they still need more I suggest looking at the breeding before just throwing lots of creep feed at them. I’ve bought creep fed lambs in the past, the vendors names are on a list in the office so that I don’t buy from them again. And it’s not just me that works that way...

So Anymulewon’tdo after all?

 

[Anymulewilldo]

So Anymulewon’tdo after all?

Nope, not force fed buggers anyway!

 

[Fat Lamb]

There should be a law against creep feeding mule glimmer lambs.

 

[Al R]

There should be a law against creep feeding mule glimmer lambs.

And creep feeding rams to put into sales

I admit my rams were on 1 lb/day of oats in Feb and March as they were following the single bearing ewes around where even the brambles had been eaten down.

 

[haybob]

Very easy to get carried away with lots of creep. We do find it helps with triplets, but the best stuff really for making stock grow is plenty of grass.

 

[hill shepherd]

We use creep feed for mule gimmers from about 3 weeks old just for a month to get them going, it helps in a cold or dry spring and they don't eat too much at that age then we put troughs out for them for a month before the sale so we have control over how much they take. We get plenty of repeat customers who say how well our lambs do for them

 

[Anymulewilldo]

We use creep feed for mule gimmers from about 3 weeks old just for a month to get them going, it helps in a cold or dry spring and they don't eat too much at that age then we put troughs out for them for a month before the sale so we have control over how much they take. We get plenty of repeat customers who say how well our lambs do for them

I can see the sense in this method. Just too make sure they have a good start and then again too put the bloom on them. If you aren’t one of those on a powerful dairy grass system I can see it’s a good idea!

 

[hill shepherd]

I can see the sense in this method. Just too make sure they have a good start and then again too put the bloom on them. If you aren’t one of those on a powerful dairy grass system I can see it’s a good idea!

We have to just give them a bit otherwise they look too far behind the hard pushed ones. One year we thought we would try feeding them a bit longer at the start but when 800 lambs got through 4 ton of feed in 8 days we soon gave up with that idea. I dread to think what some of the feed bills will be on some people's lambs who feed all summer