Forage at lambing

[EJS]

Do you give ad lib hay/haylage during and before lambing ? Is there a recommended kg per ewe forage requirement ? we have always same amount, ie 1 small bale per 10 ewes unless particularly poor quality, but this year girls seem to be finishing all hay very quickly - am happy to give ad lib just bit worried about prolapse if they stuff themselves.

 

[dodger]

the same with us feed adlib hay/silage roughly 1 bale every 3 days/50 ewes but more like every other day this year!!always have prolapses but wouldnt like to say what causes them more likely the concentrates though than hay.

 

[neilo]

If they are on ad-lib they will be less likely to gorge from being hungry. If you are concerned about prolapses, ad-lib will be better, IMO.

I've never fed forage any other way than ad-lib, nor can I see any reason to do so, unless you are desperately short of forage I suppose.

 

[Jop]

We feed ad-lib with singles and doubles receiving bale silage and all of our triplets on hay. Always reckoned that triplets have less prolapses on hay rather than silage because they don't have to eat so much fresh weight and there guts don't seem quite as full??? Definitely feed our silage ad lib though as whenever they have gone even a few hours without you get the bigger ewes push in and eat as much as they can as they think its going to run out again.

 

[dodger]

Hay is a much better and safer feed by far than silage and surprising how much dryer the ewes are to indoors on hay and happier!its just making enough of it though with the British weather!

 

[EJS]

Thanks for replies, we tended to let them finish it up completely indoors as we have walk through feeders that the forage goes in with troughs on either side for nuts, don't like walking all over the hay twice a day but you are right, there is a bit of barging when feeding out haylage, think ad lib at all times sounds better.

 

[exmoor dave]

ad lib hay here. always try to use the best stuff on the sheep. cows get the 2nd quality stuff. the girls had a treat this year in the form of some 2 cut as close to not being hay- we even kept it in a seperate pile cus we were abit worried bout it combusting. sheep loved. eat it 3 times as fast as the usual (good) stuff. they were even fighting over it. no prolapses.

 

[tr250]

we feed ad lib tmr. silage soya whole barley and econamol liquid mixed in keenan

 

[Jop]

How do you get on feeding a tmr? Does everything get the same mix or do you put more soya and barley in for your multiples? Heard of people feeding tmr to sheep but never seen it in practice!

 

[tr250]

All get the same we up the barley 2 weeks before due date. we bring 3s and lean couples in first then rest of the couples and singles a few days before due date then they can get steamed up to hopefully rear two lambs. we are lucky we have the machinary to do it already for the cattle so i know its not for every one but i think it is a very good system they always have feed in front of them so are settled hardly ever hear a blart before lambing starts. it saves feed space as we have less than half the feed space of a bag system. silage needs to be good idealy about 30%dm no dryer or they will pick it out and leave a lot in troughs and it needs to be chopped very short. it has near enough stopped twin lamb disease and we have had around 6 or 7 prolapses so far out of 540 only just over 100 left to lamb now. i think lambs are a lot more vigorous too. we dont struggle for milk either but they are all young mules with 50 texel crosses bad bags our biggest problem coz they milk so well. been doing them that way since 2005.