What brand meal for in-lamb ewes

razor8

what brand meal to ye guys use. I'm told Paul & Vincents do a very good mix for sheep but we have never used them. was going to try another brand this year.
Last year I thought ewes were in good nick lambing but thought they could have had more milk so interested to hear other peoples opinions

reilig

Personally, I would only feed rolled oats to in lamb ewes. The brand wouldn't matter to me.

Username John

reilig wrote: »

Personally, I would only feed rolled oats to in lamb ewes. The brand wouldn't matter to me.

Hi Reilg,

What do you do for minerals? Lick buckets?

I feed a mixture of both ewe nuts (18%) and rolled oats. They both cost the same (as I buy in small bags, so one is as expensive as the other)
I am always afraid they put too much of the nut into the lamb, that's why I give em rolled oats as well...

I haven't started feeling the singles yet actually, prob will do next week, and will just feed them rolled oats.

reilig

Username John wrote: »

Hi Reilg,

What do you do for minerals? Lick buckets?

I feed a mixture of both ewe nuts (18%) and rolled oats. They both cost the same (as I buy in small bags, so one is as expensive as the other)
I am always afraid they put too much of the nut into the lamb, that's why I give em rolled oats as well...

I haven't started feeling the singles yet actually, prob will do next week, and will just feed them rolled oats.

We're down from 150 ewes a few years ago to just 30 now. We use lick buckets for minerals but also dose regularly with cobalt and copper. The same fear as you - that we won't get the lamb out if we feed nut or ration. We find that the oats leaves small but hardy lambs. There's nothing worse than a big soft lamb that finds it hard to stand up and has difficulty sucking - he'll pick up every sickness going as well!

Box09

If you feed rolled oats to twin bearing ewes to the end of pregnancy you will get small lambs and mothers with poor milk. You need an 18% ration and we use gain prime ewe and lamb for last two years and its great. We used to use the super ewe but its hard to justify the extra cost now.

reilig

Box09 wrote: »

If you feed rolled oats to twin bearing ewes to the end of pregnancy you will get small lambs and mothers with poor milk. You need an 18% ration and we use gain prime ewe and lamb for last two years and its great. We used to use the super ewe but its hard to justify the extra cost now.

In my experience, you were better feeding ewes with high protein feed in the days and weeks after the lambs are born as opposed to before. This will ensure good milk supply.

razor8

I would be afraid of not having enough milk with just rolled oats as well. Lambs size isn’t a problem or lambs with vigor; we used Lakeland nuts 19% last two years and after getting a 1kg/day plus would have liked them to have more milk
Its not that they lambed with none, just expected them to be a bit fuller in the elder with all the feed they were getting
Used Connaught a few years ago and they got it hard to eat them. This year is first year I took notice of ingredients so interested to know other peoples experiences with different mills

Who make gain prime box?

razor8

reilig wrote: »

In my experience, you were better feeding ewes with high protein feed in the days and weeks after the lambs are born as opposed to before. This will ensure good milk supply.

They get no meal once they lamb with me only the day after, then its straight to grass

reilig

razor8 wrote: »

Who make gain prime box?

Gain feeds obviously.

http://www.gainfeeds.com/

reilig

razor8 wrote: »

They get no meal once they lamb with me only the day after, then its straight to grass

We don't have grass at this time of year in this part of the country so meal feeding is necessary. Ewes fed with high protein meal before lambing will have too much milk and we would end up with scours in the early days of the lambs.

razor8

reilig wrote: »

We don't have grass at this time of year in this part of the country so meal feeding is necessary. Ewes fed with high protein meal before lambing will have too much milk and we would end up with scours in the early days of the lambs.

That’s why I’m concerned the meal I was feeding doesnt do what it says on the tin. The yellow stuff stuck to their backsides is a good sign IMO and I wouldn’t term it a scour as I don’t believe it affects their performance in any way

reilig

razor8 wrote: »

The yellow stuff stuck to their backsides is a good sign IMO and I wouldn’t term it a scour as I don’t believe it affects their performance in any way

Neither would I, but when big soft lambs start making scour (not yellow dung), its often from too much milk and you have to be careful with them.

razor8

reilig wrote: »

Neither would I, but when big soft lambs start making scour (not yellow dung), its often from too much milk and you have to be careful with them.

never had that issue thankfully

weatherbyfoxer

i use hasting 18% ewe nut @€;320 per ton.all the ewe get this 6 weeks pre lambing.They are penned up in 3 groups (singles twins and triplets) with singles getting the least and triplets getting the most.Over the 6 weeks all ewe have access to pre lambing licks.some might say this is a bit exspencive but it will pay when those extra few lambs got to the factory instead the blue barrel at the end of the lambing shed

i try insure soya bean is the main protein sorce in the rations i buy..no point in having an high protein ration if most of the protein is non-digestable.Ration is like anyting else you get what you pay for

rancher

razor8 wrote: »

never had that issue thankfully

We use Flynns (mullingar)18% ewe ration here with good results, we'd never have lambing problems with the vendeen lambs and a small bit with the texel lambs.
Its vital that ewes get extra protein for 3 weeks before they lamb and Reilig I'd say scour in lambs would be more likely from lack of colostrum than too much milk, most ewes have too much milk for their lambs, I've often milked ewes to give to another ewes lamb if she lambed without milk..... handier than thawing at night
Razor, I'm just after pricing mangement tags in mulinahone, 21c plus vat printed on both sides, or 26c inc vat we're getting 150 at the moment and its costing €5postage but we also get a producer group rate, without the producer group disc it would be 2c more.....28c

razor8

weatherbyfoxer wrote: »

i use hasting 18% ewe nut @€;320 per ton.all the ewe get this 6 weeks pre lambing.They are penned up in 3 groups (singles twins and triplets) with singles getting the least and triplets getting the most.Over the 6 weeks all ewe have access to pre lambing licks.some might say this is a bit exspencive but it will pay when those extra few lambs got to the factory instead the blue barrel at the end of the lambing shed

i try insure soya bean is the main protein sorce in the rations i buy..no point in having an high protein ration if most of the protein is non-digestable.Ration is like anyting else you get what you pay for

all penned the same here too, usually go in with meal at 5 weeks if in good condition
i would agree on the soya bean, i think sheep do well on it. trying mineral licks for first time this year with triplets and older ewes. its expensive but they are holding well on it and average silage

razor8

rancher wrote: »

We use Flynns (mullingar)18% ewe ration here with good results, we'd never have lambing problems with the vendeen lambs and a small bit with the texel lambs.
Its vital that ewes get extra protein for 3 weeks before they lamb and Reilig I'd say scour in lambs would be more likely from lack of colostrum than too much milk, most ewes have too much milk for their lambs, I've often milked ewes to give to another ewes lamb if she lambed without milk..... handier than thawing at night
Razor, I'm just after pricing mangement tags in mulinahone, 21c plus vat printed on both sides, or 26c inc vat we're getting 150 at the moment and its costing €5postage but we also get a producer group rate, without the producer group disc it would be 2c more.....28c

Would agree on the scour issue too, never seen young lambs scouring, that could be a lack of minerals in the ewes possibly
feckers, think i paid 33c for 400 off them. must check it again

reilig

Thanks for the online diagnosis lads - I'll be sure to pass it on to my vet!!

As I said, I'm giving you my own experience of it. It's what works for me with my ewes on the type of land that i have.

razor8

reilig wrote: »

Thanks for the online diagnosis lads - I'll be sure to pass it on to my vet!!

As I said, I'm giving you my own experience of it. It's what works for me with my ewes on the type of land that i have.

I was only giving my experiences too!! I did only say it was a possibility

Username John

reilig wrote: »

Thanks for the online diagnosis lads - I'll be sure to pass it on to my vet!!

As I said, I'm giving you my own experience of it. It's what works for me with my ewes on the type of land that i have.

HA?

Pass it onto your vet? Sure what would you be paying them for, haven't the lads here told you the issue...

Jaysus, you'd mad to waste money on them vets, only for them to come out and just look at yer animals...

rancher

razor8 wrote: »

I was only giving my experiences too!! I did only say it was a possibility

You're just caught in the cross fire, you're not the target.
I don't get many scoury lambs here but I'd always bring a few to the lab and the result is usually low immunoglobulin level, with 400 ewes to lamb in 40 days ,we cant afford to let hygiene standards slip.
I never had ewes in before for as long and I was worried about feeding straw and meal for so long, but it has worked out fine, I have them bolused, vaccinated, footbathed, wormdosed, and the shed cleaned out so we're all ready for chaos, I think they're looking great, have a few pics here:

2013-02-10 11.05.21.jpg
2013-02-10 11.04.57.jpg

and here is the manager

2013-02-10 11.06.16.jpg

razor8

rancher wrote: »

You're just caught in the cross fire, you're not the target.
I don't get many scoury lambs here but I'd always bring a few to the lab and the result is usually low immunoglobulin level, with 400 ewes to lamb in 40 days ,we cant afford to let hygiene standards slip.
I never had ewes in before for as long and I was worried about feeding straw and meal for so long, but it has worked out fine, I have them bolused, vaccinated, footbathed, wormdosed, and the shed cleaned out so we're all ready for chaos, I think they're looking great, have a few pics here:

2013-02-10 11.05.21.jpg
2013-02-10 11.04.57.jpg

and here is the manager

2013-02-10 11.06.16.jpg

They really are looking well, just vaccinated/dosesd yesterday myself. The shed looks a great job, just an idea but why dont you use the last bay of passageway as a pen?

rancher

razor8 wrote: »

They really are looking well, just vaccinated/dosesd yesterday myself. The shed looks a great job, just an idea but why dont you use the last bay of passageway as a pen?

Hadn't thought of that, have enough room for the moment, there'll be some lambing pens going in soon so mightput ewes at the end and lambing pens in one of the less exposed pens, far end is very draughty