The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Tamsjute on September 01, 2015, 10:20:32 pm
-
My Jacob lambs have recently realised where the chicken house is and enjoy spending time sitting in there out of the weather
However, I live with an 87yr old mother in law who does not do as she's told and likes to feed the animals. The trouble is she'll feed them anything. Are layers pellets harmful to sheep through copper content, or any other factor?
-
I wouldn't advise giving sheep layers pellets of course, but my old shetland ewe lived to 14 despite numerous raids on the chicken feed so, empirically, I don't think it'll kill them quickly.
-
Sheep go mad for layers pellets... but it can have serious consequences. If you cannot avoid your mother feeding animals, I would swap round the other way. Chickens will happily pick at sheep mix and take out the interesting bits without much harm to them.
-
Mine love them too as do the pigs but then the chickens love the sheeps course mix and the cats meat so even without an elderly mum in the mix its hard to keep everyone on the right meal 100 % on the time.
I had a feed room inspection once from DEFRA they checked that all my feeds were secure and free from vermin and were happy that any opened cat meat tins had secure plastic lids and were kept separate from livestock feeds. They were impressed that my feed room was clean and tidy and that all my feed bins were clearly labeled. They were delighted that fresh fruit and veg for the animals was kept secure and bypassed the kitchen completely and left my place waving and smiling armed with samples of my feeds for laboratory testing.
As I waved them off I discovered that two hens had crept into the kitchen and were eating the cat food......well nobodys perfect.......not even me :innocent: :eyelashes: [size=78%] [/size]
-
Chicken or goose food gives our goats terrible diarrhoea if they get at more than a handful of it - I'd definitely try to keep the sheep away for that reason alone!
-
Chicken food contains animal byproducts so certainly shouldn't be eaten by ruminants. Maybe you could just feed the chickens grain.
-
I thought that layers pellets had to be kept separately to other animal food and it is one of the things that DEFRA would check for if they did an inspection.
Mine was always stored in another barn but then I discovered that the chickens were just as happy and laid just as well on mixed grain so stopped buying the pellets.
-
Layers pellets used to always have things like fish and bone meal, this would be why it was always to be kept away from ruminant feed.
All the time I have had chickens (only about 3 years) the feed does not have this in,and doesn't say on the label not to be fed to ruminants, so can be safely kept next to the sheep feed as the apha lady confirmed when she visited.
The reason you shouldn't let sheep eat layers pellets regularly is the high calcium level. Makes strong healthy egg shells but if not making shells it will solidify out in other places such as bladder stones.
-
Could she be persuaded to feed them handfuls of hay instead?
-
Takes two weeks to train a hen to use the treadle feeders. Takes a sheep about 20 minutes to work it out and a pig about three.
-
I know of sheep kept on an allotment-type co-operative where the sheep had ligament problems due to being fed pheasant pellets ("they're cheaper than sheep feed"!) They were all wlking around on tiptoe.
-
[uI have now moved the sheep to a different field which my mother in law doesn't venture to and have reorganised feed areas so she wouldn't be able to find sheep feed. She seems content with feeding the poultry and carrots to the ponies. Now how do you stop her doing that. I don't feed the ponies by hand as I don't want to encourage nipping!
Can't win them all.[/u]
-
One of my dogs has taken a liking to sheep nuts and tries to jump the fence to feed bins !
-
Off subject a bit but my hens prefer pig nuts to layers pellets. They even compete with my pigs at feeding time for them much to the confusion of the pigs. In fact I've given up buying layers pellets because they won't eat them anymore. So far the hens are all healthy and laying as well as they did on pellets!!
-
Off subject a bit but my hens prefer pig nuts to layers pellets. They even compete with my pigs at feeding time for them much to the confusion of the pigs. In fact I've given up buying layers pellets because they won't eat them anymore. So far the hens are all healthy and laying as well as they did on pellets!!
My chickens love the pig pellets and so does the dog. With my back turned he jumped into their pen from up a high bank and when I looked round he was eating their food with them. ;D