grower diet

[Rob30]

We are looking at new grower diets for our lambs. We currently feed a oat/field pea mix. Our lambs are roughly 75-80 lbs at 4 months old. We are trying to increase the growth rate. The lambs recieve about 12lbs of grain a day for 7 of them. They are always yelling like they are starving when we go into the barn. But they usually have some oats left in the feeder. I dump more in and they eat like crazy for awhile. It seems they are never happy with whats in front of them.
We are thinking of adding corn or barley to the mix to boost energy. But we don't want fat lambs.

[Ross]

I feed lots of corn in a similar ration (oats and soy) they'll grow up nice and lean especially with our cold winters taxing spare energy.

[FairviewFarm]

While I was going through back issues of The Shepherd magazine this afternoon I came across this information from an article in the December 2006 issue.

Excerpted from Whole Grain in Lamb Rations
By Dr. Malcolm Tait
Department of Animal Science
University of British Columbia
February 1982
Updated by Basil Bactawar, MSc.
Livestock Industry Specialist
BCMAFF July 2003

Several experiments were conducted at the University of British Columbia on the effects of feeding whole, rolled or pelleted grains to lambs. One consistent result seen in these experiments is that better growth and feed efficiency rates are produced when whole grains are fed compared to that of the same pelleted ration.

Lambs can digest whole grains just as well as processed forms. Of the various grains, corn produces slightly faster and more efficient gains. However, its value is no more than that of wheat or barley because the advantage of its higher energy value is offset by its low protein content and the increased cost of necessary supplementation. Barley and wheat have produced results similar to one another, perhaps with a slight advantage to barley. Oats fall well behind in terms of light weight gain, feed efficiency and dressing percentage.

ADVANTAGES OF WHOLE GRAINS

1. Feed intake is greater (25%) while feed utilization remains the same for whole compared to pelleted grain.
2. Growth rate is 20-30% faster with whole grain.
3. Feed conversion efficiency is improved 5-10%.
4. Whole grains produce a firmer more desirable fat finish on the carcass.
5. Whole grains do not cause damage to the lining of the rumen.
6. With whole grain there is less chance of “off feed,” overeating disease or acidosis problems.

The lambs are very efficient at chewing the grains while ruminating, which results in them being digested just as well as preground grain.

In situations where forages are fed with grain there is also evidence that whole grain is preferable to pellets. Feed intake tends to be higher and the utilization of the forage improved.

METHOD OF FEEDING

The system that can be used is a simple mixture of grain with a pelleted commercial protein (32%) – mineral and vitamin supplement. Nursing lambs up to 30 lbs. may be creep fed a mix of 2 parts barley to 1 part supplement. For lambs 30-60 lbs. the mix is 3 parts barley to 1 part supplement and beyond 60 lbs. a 4:1 ration is used. These rations produce levels of about 18%, 16% and 14% protein respectively.

We feed a similar ration using corn and a 35% protein supplement. Our lambs are fed free choice via a bulk feeder. The February born lambs reach market weight (140 lbs.) starting in late May. If you want to hand feed, I'd recommend feeding the grain mix at 3-4% of their body weight per day. For 80 pound lambs at 3% that's 2.4 pounds per day. At 4% that's 3.2 pounds per day. So for the 7 of them it would be 17 to 22 pounds per day. You could split that into a morning and night feeding if it fits your daily routine.

From time to time I do weigh what I put in our bulk feeder in a 24 hour period and find that our lambs do fall within that 3-4% of body weight range.