Interactive lesson

Feeding sheep, step by step

Interactive lesson: how a sheep eats, condition scoring by hand, rotational grazing, bloat, hay and grain, minerals without copper and poisonous plants.

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The whole lesson as text

1. How a sheep eats

A sheep is a ruminant: bacteria in the rumen break down grass and hay.

Fibre is the basis — Without enough hay or grass a sheep gets scour, bloat or acidosis. After grazing she lies for hours chewing the cud.
Change slowly — Rumen bacteria need 10–14 days to adjust to a new feed. A sudden switch to lush clover or to lots of grain is the commonest cause of death.
A sheep is choosy — She grazes low, down to 3–4 cm, and picks the best leaves and flowers. She leaves coarse grass, weeds and thistles.
How much she eats — Roughly 2–3 % of her body weight a day in dry matter. A 60 kg ewe eats roughly 1.5–2 kg of hay a day in winter.

Why: Good grazing and good hay are 90 % of a sheep's diet. Concentrates are only an extra in a few weeks of the year. Without enough fibre the rumen doesn't work.

Sheep and goats aren't the same: goat minerals are poisonous for sheep.
A pasture grazed only by sheep for years gets weedy: now and then let a cow or horse graze it, or top it.

2. Condition by hand

Wool hides both a thin and a fat sheep, so condition is judged by feel.

Don't look, feel — You can't see condition through the wool. Judging by eye instead of by hand is one of the commonest mistakes.
Hand on the loin — Run your hand over the loin, just behind the last rib. There you feel the backbone and the short side bones of the spine.
Score 1 to 5 — A score of 3 is right: the backbone is smooth and rounded, the side bones are felt with pressure. For tupping the target is 3–3.5.
Once a month — Score every ewe, always in the same order, and write the scores down. Separate the thin ones and feed them better; move the fat ones to poorer grazing.

Why: The condition score tells you whether a ewe is getting what she needs. A thin ewe with pale eye membranes most often has worms. Fat ewes carrying twins before lambing are a mistake too.

Before lambing the target is 3–3.5, and ewes carrying twins mustn't be fat.
At weaning 2.5 is normal: a suckling ewe loses condition.