[m3joeEm]

A somewhat silly question but thought I would put it out there:
So every time I enter the field , the sheep, as you would expect, go mad for their ration and It makes it very difficult to fill their troughs. Anyone any tips or tricks to keep them away or trick them when I fill the troughs safely?

[Me]

Buy rolls throw them on the floor

[Ladygrey]

use a dog to hold them back? use rolls? feed using feed blocks? or stick out a bale feeder and feed forage instead

[m3joeEm]

Never seen rolls before? Are they more expensive? (new to sheep farming) it's near lambing, they get silage and nuts, they are going to be indoors with troughs as I haven't got feeding barriers set up. I might actually use hurdles to block of a feeding area and then let them in. Waste of hurdles maybe :/

[m3joeEm]

They are outside at the moment but coming in soon

[Me]

Use rolls and feed on the floor in and out. Or buy knee protectors. Or walk through feeders. No more expensive than nuts

[Deere]

This time of year it's best to buy ewe rolls and find the cleanest driest part of the field and scatter them out using a different place the next day.

I started out using troughs last year and found it too hard to get feed into them without the stampede but also they troughs were a magnet for muck!

Once indoors these can be scattered in a line through the straw.

[m3joeEm]

I am going to look into getting rolls. Glad I posted this after all, cheers all!

[Ladygrey]

I feed rolls to the pigs in the winter and they dont sink in the mud, my pig rolls are actually cheaper than nuts are per kilo, I dont know about the price of ewe nuts though

[langfauld easycare]

  i fed a few ton of rolls couple of years back when we had real bad snow . i found them to be quite bad on the older ewes teeth . had alot of broken mouths,i did have a load of old draft blackies at the time . anyone else found this with rolls ?

[Me]

So you are saying they broke their back teeth on them?

[Daisys Mum]

I have my troughs just over the fence so just have to lean over to fill them, got fed up being tipped over!

[langfauld easycare]

So you are saying they broke their back teeth on them?

no front . they were all correct (120)at tupping more than half were broken mouthed when i checked them to sell with lambs at foot . the only thing i had done differnt was feed rolls .it was only thing i could think of would have caused it

[Me]

I can't say its something I've seen, I wouldn't expect them to use the fronts to that extent with rolls vs blocks or roots 

[Old Shep]

Do you have a pen where you can put the troughs but keep the sheep out? Fill the troughs then open the gate to let the sheep in and stand well back!!!