[OhLaLa]

My sheep drink such a little amount of water, some days it seems like they haven't touched it (it's fresh).

Guess it must be normal as they are all ok but wondered if it's down to the breed etc ??

 

[lachlanandmarcus]

Altho they need to always have access, the sheep I have rarely touch the water unless (i) they are ewes feeding lambs, when they need the extra water for the milk production since thats mostly water (ii) the fields are icy or snowy when they cant get moisture from the grass and they are being fed dry forage.

At this time of year its really mostly evaporation that means the bucket occasionally needs topping up. Quite useful as most of our fields arent on mains water so it is nice to be able to just fill a bucket and top it up easily. Of course in winter even our mains fed fields are off mains as the pipes freeze from Nov to March (in cairngorms!)

So no, not unusual, fairly standard I think. Which is a good thing in animals I think!

[Corrie Dhu]

Yes sheep rarely drink water, only really if you are feeding them concs or hay in the winter.

Cattle on the other hand drink a lot of water and the milk can go off a cow within hours if she hasn't got access to water.

[andywalt]

Hi there hope your good, as you know this is only my second/third year with sheep, and I was amased that they didnt drink that much in the field during the summer, but when I brought them in before lambing and they were on hay and pellets it was a differant matter each ewe used to drink approx half a bucket of water a day, so on grass they get all there water from the green stuff