Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Feeding Weaned Lambs

    
On Saturday, 2018-04-21, we weaned nearly 400 lambs off of the spring ewes.  The ewes went to the south beaver field to dry their udders on hay and ryegrass stubble.  The lambs were opened to the NE blueberry field ryegrass (seen in background) and were fed grain in adjacent holding pen 3.  In foreground is SE blueberry field with ryegrass stubble grown back a few days.  The spring ewe flock with lambs was grazing here prior to weaning time.  Feeding the lambs in holding pen 3 is turning out to be kind of a mess, not only were they eating there, but lounging around while waiting to finish eating.  Area is going to become quite a mess.  So this morning, 2018-04-25, I moved the feeders into the SE blueberry field as shown below.  There are 5 rows of 4 feed troughs, a mobile hay feeder, and a mobile creep feeder.  The creep feeder, positioned on the right, without creep gates, can hold 400 lbs of feed on its left side.  On the right side I placed several mineral tubs.

I am feeding 400 lbs of 20% protein soybean hull-pellets/meal per day, about 1 lb/lamb/day.  They have access to the ryegrass in back through two open gates, hay, and the grain.  The plan is to move all the feeders forward each week about the field so that each feed spot does not get too worn down and polluted, and the fertilizer is spread around the field.  On sunny days like this, most  of the field would go in the troughs so all lambs can eat together. When it is likely to rain before they would consume it all, some to all of the feed would go in the creep feeder. 

Most of the lambs are out of the picture in this shot.





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