← Sheep
H26-03 · Module 3 of 7 · Pages: 20 · Worksheets: 6
Feeding and grazing
How much grass, hay, concentrates, water and minerals each sheep needs through the year, how to graze without worms or bloat, and which plants are poisonous
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In short
- A sheep eats roughly 2–3 % of her body weight in dry matter a day: a 60 kg ewe eats roughly 1.5–2 kg of hay in winter.
- Allow 350 kg of hay per ewe for winter and 1,200 m² of grazing and hay ground per ewe, plus a 10–15 % reserve.
- Concentrates only when needed: 3 weeks before tupping, the last 6 weeks of pregnancy, and while suckling.
- Sheep can't tolerate copper: never give them minerals or feeds made for goats, cattle or pigs.
- Wet clover, lucerne (alfalfa) and young cereals cause bloat: put sheep on them only when full, gradually and after the dew has dried.
- Every change of feed takes at least 10–14 days.
What's inside
Chapters
- How a sheep eats
- Daily ration by type of sheep
- Condition: fat, thin or just right
- Grazing and rotation
- Bloat and dangerous grazing
- Hay: how much and what kind
- Concentrates
- Minerals, salt and water
- Poisonous plants
- Feeding through the year
- Common mistakes
- Printable checklist
Worksheets
- Winter hay calculator
- Grazing and rotation calculator
- Concentrate and cost calculator
- My flock's daily ration
- Feed stocks and pasture check
- Feeding and grazing calendar
Fields and checkboxes can be filled in with Adobe Acrobat Reader (desktop and mobile), and the calculator adds up by itself. Filling in may not work in some browsers. A print version comes with the screen PDF.
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