straw fed sheep

[rancher]

have been feeding straw/meal to sheep for 5/6 yrs now always regard straw ad lib plus .5kg meal equal to av/good silage....very convenient

 

[neilo]

With some of the silages I've seen this year straw would probably have been a better option! The way to make straw feeding work is with top quality ewe cake - 20% protein (including good quality protein like soya at least 10%) and an ME of 13. Obviously that's not much help with the situation at the moment so my next best advice in the meantime would be too make sure you have plenty of good quality artificial colostrum avaialable at lambing in case you do have less milk in the ewes, be prepared to take a twin off any ewes less than condition score 2 and hope for an early spring! I would also make a careful note of lamb losses - although this can be depressing, if you can record how many are lost at lambing and if there is a particular trend (e.g. lack of colostrum, poor lamb weights) then at least you will have the financial evidence next year for being able to invest more in ewe nutrition next year.

I think there are a lot of people hoping for an early Spring this year.

Welcome to the forum btw Catherine.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

that was my first tohught before even bought straw but my dad made the choice while i was away

I bet he payed more for straw than good hay, local merchant here is on £110 for barley straw you can get hay a lot less

 

[will6910]

for 8x4x4 bales whea straw was £38 a bale, if we could get straw to work for us it would certainly be handy as we havnt got alot of land to make enough silage each year

 

[Derrick Hughes]

I think you need to look at hay as there will be plenty of hay about this year straw may be short, you don't say where you are, pea straw is another good feed for sheep,

 

[will6910]

im from near omagh in northern ireland,all are straw comes over in england, how long would u mix straw and silage if i was going use rest of silage up ?

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Straw feeding was popular in the post on the back of low cereal price but problem is now its quite the reverse so you need to studdy your least cost option

 

[will6910]

il ring straw dealer tomorrow and see what prices hay is and ask about different straw

 

[Enry]

have had some lean ewes with good lambs, just not as much on the ewes backs to keep milk going unless we get a flush of grass. They are just tired of the rain!! Some fodder beet early in teh season may have been the answer. At this stage I think they'll put the nutrients into the lamb. 0.25kg of beet pulp pellets for the leaner ones may be the answer if you are really concerned

 

[will6910]

im going to go through them tomorrow and pick out the leanest and give them xtra attention