[Michelle.L.]

Hello again,

I hope you lovely people don't mind me spamming this forum with all my beginner questions. I have one more...

We have our two pet lambs (cheviot) on about 0.6 acres of grass (our garden). The two do graze but mostly on bushes and hedges around the garden, I rarely see them eat grass. They still get milk (750 ml each a day) and  0.5 lb pellets each. They have hay available during the night when we bring them in but they haven't touched it so far.
Especially one of them keeps bleating though, not constantly but multiple times during the day. Having read that sheep will tell you when they are hungry I'm just not sure if that's what they are doing or if they just try to get more pellets because they are tasty? Is there a "wrong kind of grass" e.g. is it possible they don't like the grass here and eat to little? There is quite a bit of clover in it which I though was good? 

[twizzel]

They probably won’t eat much grass if they’re having hay milk and creep. They’re probably just bleating because they’re pet lambs, not because they’re hungry.


Sheep do love to browse though- my lambs were quite happily eating brambles and hedge until I had to fence them away from it due to escapees 

[Fleecewife]

I agree that pet lambs are noisy which is why we haven't had any for many years 


I have never used creep feed for lambs, just mothers milk and grass, hay and a very little 'Tup and Lamb' coarse mix when the snow's lying. Are your lambs going to remain pets or are you fattening them? 'Pet lambs' is a confusing term as it can mean pets or it can mean bottle fed lambs.  Lambs which are not for breeding or for meat will not need as much creep feed as those being fattened quickly - you don't want true pets to get fat. For eating, I don't really fancy meat which has been grain fed; I like my meat to have been raised on grass and browse alone. Apologies if these are true pets (cover their ears). Yes, clover is good and tasty.


Your garden grass if nice and naturally green ie not overfed with artificial fertilisers should be fine for casual grazing, but for fattening you would want a specific grazing mix. The sheep will usually graze whatever grass is present as it is a normal behaviour. Eating manufactured feeds is not. I haven't read your other posts so I don't know how old your lambs are.
For browsing the greenery in your garden, it's usually fine, but have you checked very carefully that none of the shrubs and flowers are toxic to sheep ?

[Michelle.L.]

Thanks both! They will stay pets and are now 9-11 weeks old. And yes we have checked the garden for poisonous plants. There are a few bracken ferns which I cut as soon as I see them growing back. Everything else should be fine, the farmer we got them from also had a look around and didn't point anything out.
Don't mind the noise, was just worried that they don't get enough to eat but don't want to overfeed either 

[twizzel]

Incidentally when I had pet lambs in my garden they didn’t graze at all. When I put them in the field they were fine.


Bracken whilst poisonous doesn’t attract sheep to eat it. Your lambs could easily be weaned off milk now too.

[Michelle.L.]

They seem to be getting more into grazing by the day now :-)
About weaning - everyone I've asked in the area (Skye) doesn't wean before August ... Maybe it's a regional thing? 

One more grass question - I was thinking about scarifying and overseeding. Is there any point to doing that while the two lambs are on the ground? I'm aware that usually you shouldn't  graze overseeded grass for 5-6 weeks, just wondering if it might be different with just the two lambs... Any opinions/experiences? :-)

[macgro7]

They seem to be getting more into grazing by the day now :-)
About weaning - everyone I've asked in the area (Skye) doesn't wean before August ... Maybe it's a regional thing? 

Yes but that's lambs fed by their mothers. Your lambs are ebottle fed so you can wean them easily at the age of 6-7 weeks. If you were to keep them on their dams you can keep them for a lot longer

[Backinwellies]

Agree with Macgro7   .....  bottle lambs need weaning by 7-8 weeks .... on mother they can stay longer as they learn to graze from mum and the milk they take is very small amount.

They will shout every time they see you ..... they are not hungry just kids asking for chocolate!

[macgro7]

They will shout every time they see you ..... they are not hungry just kids asking for chocolate!

And that's even when they are grown up with their own lambs, if they are like my goats that is