feeding straw

eorna

was thinking of feeding wheaten straw (which i have)to ewe lambs not in lamb just to stretch my silage and keep them going..anybody doing that?..is there much protein in it??or is it just a waste of time??

J.O. Farmer

Straw is fine for roughage but you will need some meal with it. I could stand to be corrected but there is very little feeding value in straw.
You could feed some with silage to make silage strech but you don't want to stunt ewe lambs either.
How about giving straw to in lamb ewes with a little extra meal particularly close to lambing when ewes need meal anyway.

J.O. Farmer

Straw is fine for roughage but you will need some meal with it. I could stand to be corrected but there is very little feeding value in straw.
You could feed some with silage to make silage strech but you don't want to stunt ewe lambs either.
How about giving straw to in lamb ewes with a little extra meal particularly close to lambing when ewes need meal anyway.

rancher

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

Straw is fine for roughage but you will need some meal with it. I could stand to be corrected but there is very little feeding value in straw.
You could feed some with silage to make silage strech but you don't want to stunt ewe lambs either.
How about giving straw to in lamb ewes with a little extra meal particularly close to lambing when ewes need meal anyway.

Have fed straw and meal here for the last ten years, 1lb meal plus straw is the same as feeding silage, so my march lambers are getting 1lb meal and bedded with barley straw and they're doing fine, bed is drier than with silage so less foot probs.
Six weeks out from lambing they'll get 1.5lbs meal and increase gradually to 3lbs at lambing in 3 feeds. for doubles and triplets and 2lb for singles.
15% protein at the moment going up to 18% a month before lambing.
Some people claim that wheat straw is better.

razor8

going to try the meal feeding plus straw after finding out some silage i bought is only 61 dmd:mad:

rangler, i have a few question if you dont mind

do you feed twins and triplets the same close to lambing ie 3lb and how far out from lambing do you build them up to this?

is 3lb the max you would give triplets?

do you manage the in lamb ewe lambs differently?

rangler1

razor8 wrote: »

going to try the meal feeding plus straw after finding out some silage i bought is only 61 dmd:mad:

rangler, i have a few question if you dont mind

do you feed twins and triplets the same close to lambing ie 3lb and how far out from lambing do you build them up to this?

is 3lb the max you would give triplets?

do you manage the in lamb ewe lambs differently?

Ewe lambs cant seem to eat more than a kilo so I'd have the doubles eating a kilo from about five or six weeks out from lambing, singles get about . 75 kg for the last 4 wks. they'd all be getting .5kg/day from housing, but I'd always be aware of their condition,

Adult triplets would be getting more feed for longer than doubles. doubles might only get over the kilo/day for the last two weeks before lambing, whereas the triplets could be getting over the kilo for three to four weeks. Three pound would be the max and some groups won't eat that much so you have to be careful and just give them what they can eat in five minutes, and make all changes gradually.
At a discussion group yesterday and one of the group had 58 DMD silage and was looking for feeding rates.....so its all fresh in my mind.
I probably don't need to tell you to make sure you have good ingredients in your ration, but it's very important with straw or poor silage.

razor8

Exactly the info I was looking for, thanks again

Was surprised with analysis as it was second cut silage off recently reseeded ground and well wilted but they were leaving a lot of it behind and I had to force them to clear it up. Also quite a few had blue mould as not enough wrap was used so weighing up if it's worth buying more or just buying mealðŸ‘

rangler1

razor8 wrote: »

Exactly the info I was looking for, thanks again

Was surprised with analysis as it was second cut silage off recently reseeded ground and well wilted but they were leaving a lot of it behind and I had to force them to clear it up. Also quite a few had blue mould as not enough wrap was used so weighing up if it's worth buying more or just buying mealðŸ‘

Seems hard to understand alright, our guy yesterday said the field wasn't grazed properly all year, even though it was cut in august after been closed 5 or 6 weeks, some of the grass might have grown in May and was probably rotten and spoiled the silage,
As yours was second cut, that wouldn't be the case, what was the rest of the analyses

razor8

Analysis attached

If it was too long down would it have a drastic effect on quality?

rangler1

razor8 wrote: »

Analysis attached

If it was too long down would it have a drastic effect on quality?

,

I was expecting it to be overwilted too,, but 31% dm is about right,
Ph is a bit high alright,, but not way out.
Has to be not enough plastic if there's mould on the outside,
It's hard to believe it's so stemmy for second cut.
You'll have to feed a fair bit of meals either way so.
Recommendations from yesterday for feeding with 58DMD was
6-5 week out .6kg
4 -3 weeks out .8kg
2-0 weeks out 1.0kg

Nekarsulm

I wonder if the reseed was Italian ryegrass? Would it be stemmy at six weeks? Some of that stuff is designed to be cut at four, four and a half weeks. Just wondering.....