The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Rosemary on January 25, 2019, 01:50:00 pm
-
We feed a wee bit of BPP to our cattle to ease handling. Because it's cheaper to buy it by the tonne, I did that. And I'm not getting throught it fast. I knwo it doesn't go off but could I use it instead of 18% ewe nuts in the six weeks before lambing?
Advice welcome
-
My sheep won't touch it. I soak it for the goats as part of their daily ration, and they love it. Also if you are in a hard water area it can contribute to urinary calculii in castrated males especially. If you feed it dry they will need quite a bit of water with it. It may be worth a try, but the protein content is quite low.
-
Not instead of but mixed with ? BP is high in energy and low in protein circa 10% , will specify on the bag . it tends to fill them up and some claim it increases the number of prolapses ? Many hill farms feed it for the above reasons in smallish amounts
-
Our sheep - and cattle - like it soaked with grass pellets. You can add mollichaff too, for extra bulk, if you want. We do the latter with the cattle but our sheep aren’t greedy so haven’t tried it with them.
-
We soak it and feed it for 6 weeks before and four weeks after in varying amounts depending on grass--none this year!! Also hay and back up with 18% ewe nuts. In the last three weeks we tend to split the feed into am and pm because of volume ( and heavy buckets! ). Seems to work well for us.
-
Thanks all - I think I'll play safe and stick with BPP for the cattle and 18% nuts for the ewes :thumbsup: