store lambs

Country lad

Going to feed some store lambs sheep and lamb nuts and just wondering how much to give them they are around 35 kg

wrangler

Country lad wrote: »

Going to feed some store lambs sheep and lamb nuts and just wondering how much to give them they are around 35 kg

.5 kg is usually what I feed them if I'm trough feeding.
Build them up to it very very slowly, there's always a few that will pig out on it so if you give too much and they don't all eat, the greedy ones will sicken.
They can die if you sicken them.
Some ewe and lamb ration contains magnesium, that'll cause kidney stones in ram lambs, that'll kill them too, I'd always go with a specific lamb ration, ie intensive lamb or lamb finisher.

Country lad

Thanks very much for advice will start them off slowly to get them factory fit as soon as possible

MayoAreMagic

wrangler wrote: »

.5 kg is usually what I feed them if I'm trough feeding.
Build them up to it very very slowly, there's always a few that will pig out on it so if you give too much and they don't all eat, the greedy ones will sicken.
They can die if you sicken them.
Some ewe and lamb ration contains magnesium, that'll cause kidney stones in ram lambs, that'll kill them too, I'd always go with a specific lamb ration, ie intensive lamb or lamb finisher.

How long do you take to build them up to that level, wrangler, roughly speaking?

wrangler

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

How long do you take to build them up to that level, wrangler, roughly speaking?

It varies with the lambs and the ration, probably a fortnight.
If you were in a hurry, a nice pedigree lamb crunch will train them quicker and then change them over

Mountain Mayo

what would you give to the fellas that sicken themselves??

Im feeding mine a redmills ration, quite expensive but i just want to fatten them quickly, they alwys seem to leave the pellets behind them though. Do you have trouble moving them onto another feed? I have a bunch inside and a bunch outside....

wrangler

Mountain Mayo wrote: »

what would you give to the fellas that sicken themselves??

Im feeding mine a redmills ration, quite expensive but i just want to fatten them quickly, they alwys seem to leave the pellets behind them though. Do you have trouble moving them onto another feed? I have a bunch inside and a bunch outside....

Fattening inside in high risk in that they are easier sickened for the first few weeks. I have very little experience of indoor feeding of lambs but I'd always build them up outdoors before they go in
Strangely enough if you use a creep feeder they don't seem to get sick, probably something to do with eating little and often, but don't let the feeder go empty for any length of time

Mountain Mayo

i just have hill lambs so i am aiming for the light lamb slaugher group. need to have the lambs with plenty of cover but not too worried about the weights. I have the lambs in groups of 25 or so. the 25 out were introduced to meal for the first time on friday and they are eating about 8kg of meal so far, i feed them twice a day.
The 25 inside were introduced to meal last wednesday and are eating about 10kg per day. i am going to keep feeding the same amount until next week and hopefully then be able to up it a bit more then.

Our grass would be of poor quality so i wont really be getting any gain off grass alone

kk.man

Mountain Mayo wrote: »

what would you give to the fellas that sicken themselves??

Im feeding mine a redmills ration, quite expensive but i just want to fatten them quickly, they alwys seem to leave the pellets behind them though. Do you have trouble moving them onto another feed? I have a bunch inside and a bunch outside....

The Red mills ration is the rolls Royce of feed. Very expensive is right. I usually start them on a couple of bags of it and then change to a cheaper ration from another mill. It's great to get them interesred in feed but long term I question the economics of it.

Mountain Mayo

i agree, the lambs are light hill lambs, around 25-30kg. they are all wethers. I need to get them to about 31-33kg but they need to be fleshy, R grade. i'll start them all on redmills but i was thinking about finishing most on grass with meal if possible. any suggestions on a cheaper ration or what type of one should i be looking at

Ard_MC

Mountain Mayo wrote: »

i agree, the lambs are light hill lambs, around 25-30kg. they are all wethers. I need to get them to about 31-33kg but they need to be fleshy, R grade. i'll start them all on redmills but i was thinking about finishing most on grass with meal if possible. any suggestions on a cheaper ration or what type of one should i be looking at

Has Aurivo not developed a ration for those lambs?

Mountain Mayo

it has i believe but from what i have heard its not great.....very slow to finish lambs eventhough it is cheaper

Dinzee Conlee

Mountain Mayo wrote: »

i agree, the lambs are light hill lambs, around 25-30kg. they are all wethers. I need to get them to about 31-33kg but they need to be fleshy, R grade. i'll start them all on redmills but i was thinking about finishing most on grass with meal if possible. any suggestions on a cheaper ration or what type of one should i be looking at

What about mixing rolled barley through it, should reduce the cost. They might not find it very palatable though.

I think once they are all eating, you could increase the amount by a bit every day til you get 0.5kg/head/feed. If you want to put on weight quick, you want to be feeding em a good bit every time... Feeding 0.5kg/head twice a day, should put on ~1kg/week.

Why do you want to get to 31-33kg, what market is this for?

Just on the economics of feeding 25kg lambs - if they eat 1kg/day, and put on 1kg/week. That's 7 weeks to get 32kg, so ~50kg ration. Not sure what you're paying, but I suspect its prob about 9euro/25kg bag.
So, costing you 18euro to get the 25lamb to 32kg

I would expect you'd get 2.10/kg for store lambs, so for 25kg, 52.50euro

At the end of all the feeding, will you get over 70euro for the lambs?

Ard_MC

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

What about mixing rolled barley through it, should reduce the cost. They might not find it very palatable though.

I think once they are all eating, you could increase the amount by a bit every day til you get 0.5kg/head/feed. If you want to put on weight quick, you want to be feeding em a good bit every time... Feeding 0.5kg/head twice a day, should put on ~1kg/week.

Why do you want to get to 31-33kg, what market is this for?

Just on the economics of feeding 25kg lambs - if they eat 1kg/day, and put on 1kg/week. That's 7 weeks to get 32kg, so ~50kg ration. Not sure what you're paying, but I suspect its prob about 9euro/25kg bag.
So, costing you 18euro to get the 25lamb to 32kg

I would expect you'd get 2.10/kg for store lambs, so for 25kg, 52.50euro

At the end of all the feeding, will you get over 70euro for the lambs?

Are full hill bred lambs making 2.10?

Theres a market for certain amount for light hill lambs. I think with athleague. Need to be fat tho.

kk.man

Mountain Mayo wrote: »

i agree, the lambs are light hill lambs, around 25-30kg. they are all wethers. I need to get them to about 31-33kg but they need to be fleshy, R grade. i'll start them all on redmills but i was thinking about finishing most on grass with meal if possible. any suggestions on a cheaper ration or what type of one should i be looking at

I wouldn't like to recommend any product on a public forum. It wouldn't be fair to the companies.

Dinzee Conlee

Ard_MC wrote: »

Are full hill bred lambs making 2.10?

Theres a market for certain amount for light hill lambs. I think with athleague. Need to be fat tho.

That's true Ard_MC, they might not. I heard a quote of 2.10, but it was lowland types...

MayoAreMagic

Mountain Mayo wrote: »

it has i believe but from what i have heard its not great.....very slow to finish lambs eventhough it is cheaper

It is a bit dusty I have found.
Id be of the opinion that you need a higher protein content for mountain lambs initially, to get more size into them, before using a finisher like that.

Albert Johnson

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

Ard_MC wrote: »

Are full hill bred lambs making 2.10?

Theres a market for certain amount for light hill lambs. I think with athleague. Need to be fat tho.

That's true Ard_MC, they might not. I heard a quote of 2.10, but it was lowland types...

The hill lambs are only really starting to appear in last fortnight but the €2kg and over is definitely available up to this week anyway. There's heaps of buyer's for store lambs of all weights and colour's atm, a lot of lads that would usually buy cattle are afraid of what the future holds for beef and are going to feed lambs instead. A man who never had sheep in my lifetime rang me looking for lambs during the week and I told him to hold off as there getting dearer every day. I was talking to another man who usually buys top quality heifer's at a sheep sale and remarked it was unusual to see him round the ring at lambs. He told me had 60 ewe lambs bought at that stage and reckoned it was 24 years since he last owned a sheep.