This hay offers a high forage diet, which often includes perennial grass bunches. This type of hay offers a quality balance of both protein and energy producing nutrients. This type of hay is a lot better for horses than for sheep or for goats.
It is lower in protein and energy producing nutrients than alfalfa hay, but is higher in fiber content. Sheep and other varieties of livestock tend to love cereal grain hay because it is sweet. Oat hay offers a high percentage of carbohydrates, a high fiber content, but is low in protein. Because sheep will consume the entire leaf and stem of each blade of oat hay, there is nearly nothing wasted from the plant.
This type of hay is also a rich source of zinc, manganese, and phosphorus. A mixture of oat hay and alfalfa at a 1 to 5 ratio is often recommended for sheep and other ruminants. The most common livestock grass hay varieties include Bermuda, ryegrass, brome, and fescue.
This type of grass hay is often cheaper to purchase than alfalfa, orchard, or Timothy hay. As with all types of grass hays, Bermuda has lower digestible energy content and protein levels that other top types of legume style livestock hay varieties.
Treats, even healthy ones, should be fed to sheep only in small amounts on an occasional basis. I use healthy snacks to train our free ranging herd to come to the barn for put up, and to prepare them for handling during shearing, hoof trimming, and for medical treatment. Grain feed should also only be given as a small supplement to a healthy hay-based diet. I use an All Stock variety that can be fed to the rest of our animals for the sake of expediency, safety — so no one accidentally gives out the wrong feed to the wrong animal, and for a cost savings.
Buying feed in bulk from an agricultural supply store instead of just picking up one or two bags a week can save a lot of money over the course of the year. You do not necessarily have to buy healthy snacks for your herd of sheep, you can grow them. It is far easier to avoid giving your mob of sheep fruits and vegetables they cannot eat than it is to prevent the growth of dangerous to deadly plants and weeds in their pasture. In addition to watching what you choose to feed the sheep keenly, you must also do a routine inspection in and around their pasture and pen to make sure no poisonous growth is occurring.
The best diet for sheep is a natural one, supplemented only slightly with grain feed and healthy snacks. That is, in most cases, they should be eating an almost exclusive diet of pasture or hay, rather than grain or formulated sheep food, which can be too rich or calorically dense than what is necessary to keep them healthy. Rather than directly receiving nutrients from the food they eat, sheep must first ferment their food in their complex digestive system consisting of a four-chambered stomach and then absorb the nutrients out of the resultant fermented mixture.
Due to the way they absorb nutrients, they need to be gradually introduced to new and novel food if changing their diet is necessary; abruptly changing their diet can lead to bloat and other digestive issues. The amount of dry matter a sheep needs to consume in order to meet their nutritional needs depends on many factors including the temperature, the type and quality of the food, and the individual their weight, life stage, general health, and activity level all factor in.
By offering hay or pasture free-choice, individuals can consume as much food as they need though some individuals may require additional supplementation on top of this and others may need their intake restricted, in which case your veterinarian can make specific recommendations regarding their dietary needs. Sheep pastures should consist primarily of mixed grasses with a smaller percentage of legumes such as clover.
Your local cooperative extension office should be able to recommend a seed mix for your residents that will grow well in your area, but if you care for male sheep residents, be sure to ask about a pasture mix that is suitable for neutered males, as some forages may increase the risk of urinary calculi.
Before giving sheep access to pasture, ensure that it has been thoroughly checked for toxic plants! Some sheep will prefer to eat more interesting plant life like weeds before deciding to munch on grasses. Your pastures should be divided up and their use rotated throughout the season to give the foliage time to regenerate and to lower the chances of residents ingesting parasites in the pasture which is more likely when sheep graze on short pastures.
Without proper pasture rotation, sheep will often graze pasture so close to the ground that they can defoliate a pasture quite quickly! Lacking adequate pasture, either due to the time of year or the quality of your available pasture, you should feed sheep a grass hay, such as timothy or orchard grass, though the specific variety will depend a lot on your location and what is available.
Hay can come in multiple cuttings, with 1st and 2nd being the most frequently used. The cutting simply indicates when the hay was harvested cut for the season- first cutting was harvested first, second cutting is harvested second, and so on. In some areas, first cutting may be all that is available to you- it all depends on your region , the growing season, and your supplier. Depending on the type of hay you use, there may be physical and nutritional differences between the different cuttings.
For example, when comparing first and second cutting timothy hay, first cutting is typically coarser than second cutting, which is often richer, softer, and also more expensive though in some cases, first and second cutting may look very similar. Be wary of hay feeders designed for horses, as certain styles can pose the risk of entrapment for sheep, particularly wall-mounted styles with tapered vertical bars that have wider gaps towards the top that narrow at the bottom.
A sheep may fit their entire head in the gap at its widest point but then become trapped when they bring their head closer to the ground. Sheep cannot be allowed to eat string under any circumstances! Learn more about this challenge at your sanctuary here. Alfalfa pastures should not be used generally for sheep feeding as its high calcium and protein content can cause health issues like obesity and urinary calculi.
Alfalfa should only be fed to babies or females who are pregnant, recovering from an illness, or struggling to keep weight on. It can easily cause obesity and painful and dangerous urinary calculi in sheep.
It can also cause laminitis. Very young sheep, nursing mothers, and sheep who are significantly underweight can have their protein supplemented with protein blocks or with a soybean or sunflower meal rather than using grain. If you do offer grain to sheep, talk to your veterinarian about ammonium chloride supplementation to prevent struvite calculi. And if you opt to feed sheep a premixed diet, ensure that it is safe for sheep to eat, as fortified goat food may contain too much copper for a sheep to safely consume.
Sheep should not graze on abundant clover or alfalfa that is wet or moist from rain or dewdrops, nor should they have free access to grain stores, nor should they be allowed unlimited access to a brand new pasture with unfamiliar foliage on it. When introducing a new feed to sheep, feed every day. After this introductory period, the ration can gradually be fed out less frequently see guidelines below. If sheep are fed daily each feed amount is small and dominant animals will eat more than their share at the expense of smaller, weaker animals.
Research has shown that there will be a more uniform liveweight across a mob and fewer losses, if sheep are fed less often. After the introduction program leading up to a survival or maintenance ration, sheep should be fed at these intervals:. If possible, feed the roughage before the grain so that all sheep get some roughage. This also reduces the risk of hungry sheep overeating grain resulting in acidosis.
Cereal grains generally form the basis of a ration or supplement because they are high in energy and are usually readily available. Cereal grains pose an acidosis risk as a result of their high starch content. Cereal-based diets or supplements should be introduced gradually over 10 to 20 days depending on the feed and situation to allow the rumen time to adapt. Refer to Table 4 for an example introductory schedule for a maintenance ration. The descending order of risk of acidosis is wheat, triticale, barley then oats, where oats are the safest grain to feed.
When introducing maintenance rations, allow at least 10 days for oats and low energy pellets and 14 days for wheat, barley and triticale. Even changing from one grain to another should be carried out slowly over 7 days. Oats or sheep pellets can be introduced to sheep depending on their cereal grain or energy content 5 days faster than recommended in Table 4.
If sheep have been grazing stubbles with grain on the ground, introduction can be 3 days shorter at the early stages. Seconds grain can be a useful inclusion in mixed rations because they are generally higher in crude protein and have less starch than fully formed grains. This may mean that you can reduce the amount of lupins included in the diet, particularly if you are feeding lambs. It is very important to have the protein and energy level tested because they are likely to have a variable nutrient content due to the degree of pinching and the presence of weed seeds.
Seconds grain should be introduced gradually because they still pose an acidosis risk. Lupins are a good source of protein and have the advantage of a high energy content, a very low level of starch and a high level of fibre. This means that lupins pose a lower acidosis risk than cereal grains.
It is still important to gradually introduce lupins to sheep because the sudden introduction of high amounts of lupins to hungry stock may result in ammonia toxicity. Lupins are low in sulfur which can upset the ratio of nitrogen to sulfur.
To overcome the imbalance, a mineral supplement containing sulfate or sulfur for example, gypsum can be added to the diet. Lupins often seem relatively expensive compared with other grains on technical feed value, but in practice they punch well above their weight and perform better than other grains in a paddock situation.
Also, lupins are nicely packaged so there is less waste in feeding them. The major advantage of lupins is in saving labour. They can be fed out infrequently as long as the same total quantity of feed is presented to the stock over the same time.
This is because lupins do not contain starch and therefore they do not cause digestive upsets. The time between feeding lupins can be as long as 3 weeks, but usually once a week is best. Provided your paddocks will stand it, the best way to feed sheep is to spin the lupins out over the paddock. Otherwise pour out a very thin trail. These feeding-out techniques mean:. Beans, peas and vetches contain a high level of energy and protein.
They also have a high level of starch, which means they pose an acidosis risk. They need to be introduced slowly and fed at least twice a week to prevent acidosis.
Sheep may take some time to adapt to these feeds if they have not been exposed to them before. Canola seed is also high in energy and protein. However, there are 2 problems associated with canola in a ration. Most seed will tend to pass through the sheep undigested because of the small seed size and lignified seed coat. The other problem is that the oil in whole canola seed, when released in the rumen, can coat the fibre in the gut and reduce the efficiency of digestion.
Canola can, however, be utilised quite well by sheep if it is coarsely cracked or milled. Canola seconds are generally of lower oil content and contain more protein. Using pellets can be convenient.
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