Feeding lambs ad lib

Username John

Hello,

I have a few lambs left, they were outside up til now. But they have come to the end of what grass I am willing to give em so I might throw em into the shed..

How do lads start lambs off on ad lib meals?
Do ye give em straw with it as roughage?
How much meal would they eat per week?
How much weight would they put on per week?
What would you expect the kill out % to be after let's say 3-4 weeks ad lib?

Sorry for all the questions, would like to see the back of these lads... but would like to know more about ad lib feeding too...

Thanks all...

rangler1

Username John wrote: »

Hello,

I have a few lambs left, they were outside up til now. But they have come to the end of what grass I am willing to give em so I might throw em into the shed..

How do lads start lambs off on ad lib meals?
Do ye give em straw with it as roughage?
How much meal would they eat per week?
How much weight would they put on per week?
What would you expect the kill out % to be after let's say 3-4 weeks ad lib?

Sorry for all the questions, would like to see the back of these lads... but would like to know more about ad lib feeding too...

Thanks all...

I just put the creep feeder with them and they seem to sort themselves, it'd probably be safer to leave them on grass until they get used to adlib.
They don't need much straw, most rations are 6 to 8% fibre so they're getting nearly enough fibre through the ration.
with adlib, I find ration better than nut, my own theory is that whatever they use to bind the nuts, maybe molasses, scours them, or maybe the ingredients are overprocessed
They'll eat about 1 -1.5kgs a day, but here thy put on over 2kgs/week, there would be compensatory growth as mine wouldn't have been on meal before, thrive definitely slows down after 4 -6 wks on meal.
Definitely possible to go from low 40s KO UP TO 50%If the lambs are stunted or not big enough, you won't get great payback as it takes a while to turn them round

MD1983

i am ad lib feeding c500 store lambs at the moment, mainly horny lambs with a few suffolk and texels thrown in. lambs are in 2 batches and are being fed grain mixed with minerals, a yeast product and soya (yeast and soya only added once full ad lib was started). only have about an hour a day to look after them so its a rushed process

started feeding the first batch with troughs and a 1900 litre advantage feeder. the feeder held some lamb nuts and was on a setting to allow about .5kg per day. i also laid out troughs beside the feeder and put nuts in, ran the lambs over and held them there until they started feeding out of the troughs. as the days went on i mixed in oats and with the nuts, then oats barley and nuts and then more barley then oats so on until it was maybe 50:50 oats and barley. about 3 weeks of this and then opened advantage feeder up to max setting and took away troughs. no animals lost with acidosis, lowland sheep took to it much quicker than horny sheep but they all got in the swing eventually

2nd batch started on much the same process only greatly accelerated with 10 days only of trough feeding as i was busy with work. then full ad lib feeding but feeding on oats only with a gradual changeover to barley. lost 3 lambs in the few days after ad lib feeding commenced, dont know for sure what caused the deaths but likely acidosis. so a little over 1% of the lambs in this batch lost from the changeover to ad lib

all animals are on a barley and wheat mix now, no rationale for that other than there was a few tonnes of each left over from the harvest

Green farmer

rangler1 wrote: »

thrive definitely slows down after 4 -6 wks on meal

Have to agree , my ones here that I'm meaning, are sick of meal and I have to change the brand of meal regularly as they get sick of the flavour. You'll get sick of constantly dipping your hand in your pocket for the bags of meal also, with the current end reward on offer, should be better in March though .

Willfarman

Username John wrote: »

Hello,

I have a few lambs left, they were outside up til now. But they have come to the end of what grass I am willing to give em so I might throw em into the shed..

How do lads start lambs off on ad lib meals?
Do ye give em straw with it as roughage?
How much meal would they eat per week?
How much weight would they put on per week?
What would you expect the kill out % to be after let's say 3-4 weeks ad lib?

Sorry for all the questions, would like to see the back of these lads... but would like to know more about ad lib feeding too...

Thanks all...

The mart trade for ewe and wether hoggets is quite good considering where the fat lambs are.. 40 kg €90

Put 20€ of feed in them. Try keep feet right and hope none of them die.. And then compete with the massive flush of lambs that are going to appear off of fields of rape and winter grazing..

rangler1

Willfarman wrote: »

The mart trade for ewe and wether hoggets is quite good considering where the fat lambs are.. 40 kg €90

Put 20€ of feed in them. Try keep feet right and hope none of them die.. And then compete with the massive flush of lambs that are going to appear off of fields of rape and winter grazing..

Tim keady was speaking at a meeting last night, he wouldn't be an advocate of meal feeding but on trials they did on indoor feeding, the best performers were adlib fed, they put on 5 kgs deadweight in 35days whereas some lambs on different feed took up to 300 days to put on 5kgs DW, He said jokingly that they got to form a great long term relationship with the latter

Willfarman

rangler1 wrote: »

Tim keady was speaking at a meeting last night, he wouldn't be an advocate of meal feeding but on trials they did on indoor feeding, the best performers were adlib fed, they put on 5 kgs deadweight in 35days whereas some lambs on different feed took up to 300 days to put on 5kgs DW, He said jokingly that they got to form a great long term relationship with the latter

No question it does a great job but take a ration costing 270 a tonne. Average consumption of 2 kgs a day for handiness X 35 days €18.50 Now take that you can sell your 40 kilo lamb for €90 then add €18.50 + mortality + other overheads.. The job is a bad one this time lads but your as well accept it and never heap good money on top of bad.

4.70 kilo cannot sustain any gain from snything only green grass or fodder crops. Not worth a fuk this time of year.

rangler1

Willfarman wrote: »

No question it does a great job but take a ration costing 270 a tonne. Average consumption of 2 kgs a day for handiness X 35 days €18.50 Now take that you can sell your 40 kilo lamb for €90 then add €18.50 + mortality + other overheads.. The job is a bad one this time lads but your as well accept it and never heap good money on top of bad.

4.70 kilo cannot sustain any gain from snything only green grass or fodder crops. Not worth a fuk this time of year.

Lambs were slow this year and a glut now wasn't unexpected
If this year has shown us anything, it's that you have to keep lambs thriving, starting with if they're not putting on 300gs/day on the ewe, you make sure she has enough feed to ensure they do, likewise if they're not 30kgs at weaning at 14 weeks, you have to make decisions again etc etc,grass is going downhill from mid june.
This mess will effect next year big time, the hobby storelamb buyers won't be at the ring to underpin prices

Willfarman

rangler1 wrote: »

Lambs were slow this year and a glut now wasn't unexpected
If this year has shown us anything, it's that you have to keep lambs thriving, starting with if they're not putting on 300gs/day on the ewe, you make sure she has enough feed to ensure they do, likewise if they're not 30kgs at weaning at 14 weeks, you have to make decisions again etc etc,grass is going downhill from mid june.
This mess will effect next year big time, the hobby storelamb buyers won't be at the ring to underpin prices

There isn't really a glut at all rangler. Icm have ballywater farms (Bert Allen) feeding thousands of lambs that they they can pull on any day they are short. There is also northern Irish and uk lambs being brought in.

rangler1

Willfarman wrote: »

There isn't really a glut at all rangler. Icm have ballywater farms (Bert Allen) feeding thousands of lambs that they they can pull on any day they are short. There is also northern Irish and uk lambs being brought in.

All those supplies were there last year at 5.50
It was like buying houses during the boom, every tom,dick and harry was buying store lambs, it had to blow up.
8000 more lambs killed than this week last year and 1000 more ewes.........certainly not a scarcity anyway

Green farmer

Willfarman wrote: »

. There is also northern Irish and uk lambs being brought in.

Think yer both right . I remember reading the figures somewhere and the imports numbers were way, way up on previous years, coupled to this you'd imagine no southern lambs travelled north, that might have done in other years. In addition to that the store lamb trade when abit mad in recent years with prices driven by what cattle were making as opposed to what the end user factory was paying.

Willfarman

rangler1 wrote: »

All those supplies were there last year at 5.50
It was like buying houses during the boom, every tom,dick and harry was buying store lambs, it had to blow up.
8000 more lambs killed than this week last year and 1000 more ewes.........certainly not a scarcity anyway

the store producer needs a twist for his or her efforts. The twist from an 80euro store in september isn't big. The finisher needs a minimum of 120 after Christmas to leave a tenner from the said 80 euro store.

No Celtic tiger greed. Honest descant folk being ****ed over by big processers here.
Imported lambs costing more than Irish lambs when fees are transport is accounted. And paying staff.. Renting land and feeding lambs themselves so they always have a reserve and don't have to compete for stock.

rangler1

Willfarman wrote: »

the store producer needs a twist for his or her efforts. The twist from an 80euro store in september isn't big. The finisher needs a minimum of 120 after Christmas to leave a tenner from the said 80 euro store.

No Celtic tiger greed. Honest descant folk being ****ed over by big processers here.
Imported lambs costing more than Irish lambs when fees are transport is accounted. And paying staff.. Renting land and feeding lambs themselves so they always have a reserve and don't have to compete for stock.

There was a few neighbours pitying me lately for lambing ewes.....loads more money to be made buying stores and less work etc etc.
Processors have to do what they have to do, no point in thinking we can change them, We all look to ways to cut costs, they're no different.

kk.man

rangler1 wrote: »

There was a few neighbours pitying me lately for lambing ewes.....loads more money to be made buying stores and less work etc etc.
Processors have to do what they have to do, no point in thinking we can change them, We all look to ways to cut costs, they're no different.

I see your point Rangler too...but compare with buying houses etc is not a fair comparison... I have experience buying stores and i see woefully mistakes around the sales ring...i even gave out to fellas for bidding too much..but as one of the biggest cattle dealers said to me a few months back ' a fella with money is a dangerous object '

charolais0153

rangler1 wrote: »

There was a few neighbours pitying me lately for lambing ewes.....loads more money to be made buying stores and less work etc etc.
Processors have to do what they have to do, no point in thinking we can change them, We all look to ways to cut costs, they're no different.

Would there be any money in buying ewes now ...lambing them and selling them with lambs at foot if they weren't going to be introduced to your own flock

rangler1

charolais0153 wrote: »

Would there be any money in buying ewes now ...lambing them and selling them with lambs at foot if they weren't going to be introduced to your own flock

Risky time to be buying anything in, I wouldn't consider johns as value, neighbour said they were broken mouthed, so couldn't see them grazing enough if grass was tight, meal would be needed.
As my neighbour said ''€120.....'twas enough for them''