[moprabbit]

Thanks for that information Farmers Wife. I know it's about horses but interesting nevertheless. She is overweight and that is what I'm working on now.They've got a very small area of poor grass and when it rains and the grass starts to grow again, I'll make it smaller still. Thanks for your interest and help.

[Coximus]

Restricting grazing for sheep is a very bad idea, - they are ruminants and need a constant throughput of feed, cutting them down can stress them and make them ill irregardless of body condition. The way to address the condition is to lower the ME & Protien of the diet, IE no supliments and longer grazing (Longer grass has a lower ME/protien and energy content and takes longer to digest than short grass, quite asside from the fact its not good for the ground to be grazed too short.


If the sheep is persistently lame - the kindest and correct thing to do is to send her off - She could likely have a joint issue, or maybe have damaged some cartilage running, or have had a foot infection in the winter, which has damaged the joint, which she will not likely recover from. Spending money treating something like that is pointless as you will spend 5x the sheeps value and are highly unlikely to see a recovery, if as you say it keeps re-occuring.

Laminitis does not really occur in sheep, and if it did, the kindest thing would be to send it off - sheep, due to the way they are build and eat are not good at recovering from illness - and As I have found, a persistently lame sheep will always be so with any treatment only really being a sticking plaster to the underlying issue. (I have fought to keep a £700 texel stud ewe good for years but ate her in the end) - make her comfortable, try anti inflammatory and if after 4 weeks no good... time to send.

[dixie]

This is really interesting as my ram is lame on and off and I was beginning to wonder about laminitis? I’ve reduced hard feed to a bare minimum ( I like to gather them daily to check) and now the grass is reduced he seems much better, I’m thinking it could be arthritis but while he’s improved I’ll leave him alone!

[Backinwellies]

This is really interesting as my ram is lame on and off and I was beginning to wonder about laminitis? I’ve reduced hard feed to a bare minimum ( I like to gather them daily to check)

You don't need hard feed daily to gather sheep a one hand full (to a whole group of sheep) once or twice a week will keep them running to you.

[dixie]

Thankyou, it is only a handful but I like to gather them daily 

[SallyintNorth]

Maybe use grass nuts rather than a cereal based feed?  Ours love the Dengie grass pellets just as much as any other feed.

[moprabbit]

Just looked at the Dengie website and it suggested soaking the pellets.Do you do that Sallyintnorth?

[CarolineJ]

I only soak them if I'm feeding 0.5kg or so to a horse.  A couple of handfuls to the sheep are fine.  The recommendation to soak is because if a horse eats a couple of Stubbs scoops'-worth dry, they'll swell as they go through the digestive system and possibly cause colic.

[SallyintNorth]

We did mix with soaked sugar beet at first, while the sheep got used to them, but now we just feed dry.

[moprabbit]

Ok! Thank you for the reply.