Feeding Housed Ewes Straw

[Newby]

Does anyone know straw usage per 100 lowland ewes, when bedding and feeding on straw?
Am I right in thinking concentrate use will be slightly higher feeding straw?

 

[JohnGalway]

Got hill sheep here, flock average weight would be 55kg - just so you can compare. Housed 41 ewes and 4 hoggets, all in lamb in late Winter/Early spring. They were using one round bale per three days, I fed the straw into walk through passageways, and what they pulled in, and what was left over by the next feeding time was forked into pens for bedding. The bales were big, well packed, spring and winter barley straw.

They will eat more concentrates that if you'd also be feeding hay/silage as the straw is basically there to fill them up, providing SFA nutrition. I was advised to be aware of high copper levels in some feeds where (I think) distillers grains were involved. Would go for a high quality feed with soya bean meal and good ingredients at the top of the lists, not a feed where proteins etc are got by voodoo/poor quality feeds.

 

[spin cycle]

think we had a thread about this recently

 

[Newby]

think we had a thread about this recently

I thought the same but couldn't find it

 

[Sheep92]

I think i remember someone saying ad lib straw and half kilo of meal equals good quality silage, maybe im wrong! Have been thinking about doing it here just havnt the courage yet, few neighbours do it and they swear by it!

 

[Newby]

I think i remember someone saying ad lib straw and half kilo of meal equals good quality silage, maybe im wrong! Have been thinking about doing it here just havnt the courage yet, few neighbours do it and they swear by it!

I'm still at the mulling it over stage.

 

[spin cycle]

thread called 'straw feed sheep'

 

[spin cycle]

ran pens of 40-60 last winter each with two ring feeders..one for hay...one for straw.....worked quite well but had to stop straw in one pen 3 weeks out as i was getting prolapses
concluded straw can be used as a supplement if hay short

my post from that thread

 

[Newby]

my post from that thread

Wouldn't do it again then? Unless hay was short?

 

[spin cycle]

Wouldn't do it again then? Unless hay was short?

bear in mind i'm bit of a novice with sheep...so my limited experience tells me that a sheep housed gets less excersize ...add in growing lambs....there are two risks 1/pigging out on straw so much that there isn't room and they start to pop out prolapses 2/ tld due to physically not getting enough energy from straw/conc

if the straw is 6mj/kg...a poorish hay might be 8mj/kg.....so the ewe has to eat 1 1/4 kg of straw to get to the equal of 1kg of hay....quite a lot if dmi is perhaps only 1.8kg total....remembering you need some space for conc

i'll offer straw this year but withdraw 3 weeks before lambing....they'll still pick about bedding but IME thats not the same as a fresh bale in a ring feeder

 

[It was already broken.]

Does anyone know straw usage per 100 lowland ewes, when bedding and feeding on straw?
Am I right in thinking concentrate use will be slightly higher feeding straw?

What you asking about housing for @Newby? I thought you was an easicare man. Do you still house them?

 

[rancher]

I was involved in the last straw for sheep debate, have been feeding sheep straw for the last 10 years,
I consider straw plus .5kg concentrate to be the same as adlib silage.
I don't put straw in a ring feeder for them, i just bed them every morning and they eat what they want while it's clean,
One shed gets one 4 by 4 round bale per day and there's 200 ewes in it, bales are well packed.
Start increasing concentrate from 6 weeks out from lambing up to 1.3 kg in three feeds for doubles at lambing

 

[Newby]

What you asking about housing for @Newby? I thought you was an easicare man. Do you still house them?

Your making presumptions now I said I had some easy cares, on some newly acquired land as it happens, but I never said I was an easy care man

 

[Newby]

I was involved in the last straw for sheep debate, have been feeding sheep straw for the last 10 years,
I consider straw plus .5kg concentrate to be the same as adlib silage.
I don't put straw in a ring feeder for them, i just bed them every morning and they eat what they want while it's clean,
One shed gets one 4 by 4 round bale per day and there's 200 ewes in it, bales are well packed.
Start increasing concentrate from 6 weeks out from lambing up to 1.3 kg in three feeds for doubles at lambing

So do you feed concentrate along side the straw from the outset? As soon as you house?

 

[It was already broken.]

Your making presumptions now I said I had some easy cares, on some newly acquired land as it happens, but I never said I was an easy care man

Oh!!! Got it now. Dint mean nothing by it like. Just sticking me nose in your business like.

 

[Bones]

If you can feed cobs on large nuts on the ground ,it helps with feeding space and allows more time for shy feeders .

 

[Sheep92]

Every year im tempted to try it, theres a lot of cost in making all these bales of silage and labour feeding them out, used to feed nothing but hay here but the way weathers been wev less and less every year, id imagine feeding straw is a lot less labour intensive

 

[Guiggs]

I was involved in the last straw for sheep debate, have been feeding sheep straw for the last 10 years,
I consider straw plus .5kg concentrate to be the same as adlib silage.
I don't put straw in a ring feeder for them, i just bed them every morning and they eat what they want while it's clean,
One shed gets one 4 by 4 round bale per day and there's 200 ewes in it, bales are well packed.
Start increasing concentrate from 6 weeks out from lambing up to 1.3 kg in three feeds for doubles at lambing

That's quite a lot of concentrate isn't it?
Surely financially your not making any savings, or are you?

 

[rancher]

That's quite a lot of concentrate isn't it?
Surely financially your not making any savings, or are you?

It's for the convenience I'm doing it, It's clean and there isn't the stink of silage around.
The system uses about 50kgs of meals extra per ewe. silage would cost very little less and the work of feeding it
I use about half a 4 by 4 round bale straw per ewe over a hundred day winter

 

[It was already broken.]

It's for the convenience I'm doing it, It's clean and there isn't the stink of silage around.
The system uses about 50kgs of meals extra per ewe. silage would cost very little less and the work of feeding it
I use about half a 4 by 4 round bale straw per ewe over a hundred day winter

I assume you keep the straw under cover before use? That would be the killer for me as silage bales can sit out and not use valuable shed space