[waterbuffalofarmer]

I give my sheep sugar beet in the run up to lambing and some hay. I find it works quite well and they have plenty of milk for their lambs too. Feed blocks are good too and I always give them licks.

[nutterly_uts]

Also have a few zwartbles that need feed and still don't put on condition

I hear this about them from a couple of people and then from others they are fine. I think you need to be pretty strict about culling out the Zs that eat and eat and don't put on as it sounds like a problem is bubbling along in the breed.

I know friends with show herefords found that some lines had been accidentally selected to eat crazy amounts but not to gain weight as expected.

Easy for me to say as I don't have any yet but I won't keep any Zs I need to feed heavily

[SallyintNorth]

Hillview, I'm not sure what you mean by Suffolk Mules - do you mean Suffolk crosses out of Mules?

If they're actual Mules, ie., Mum was a hill sheep and Dad was a Blue-faced Leicester, then they'll be prone to multiple lambs and to putting their all into those lambs.  On our ground, twin-bearing Mules must be fed or they'll either get twin lamb disease, or lose too much condition to be able to produce and rear their lambs - or both.

The issue with haylage in the last 6 weeks of gestation is it takes up too much room.  If they aren't getting protein and sugar in a more concentrated form, they'll have no choice but to eat loads of haylage.  Between growing lambs and a rumenful of haylage, malnourishment and/or prolapse is likely.  On the moorland farm, where our grass and silage were not of the highest feed value, we were advised to split the cake ration for our twin-bearing Mules into two daily feeds, so they weren't getting too hungry between cake feeds and overeating hay/silage.

Sugar (glucose) is essential in the last 6-8 weeks; lack of will result in TLD.  One way you can reduce costs is to provide the sugar as glucose, molasses or sugar beet.  All take up less room than haylage and provide readily-available glucose.  Licky buckets can also do this but are not usually a cheap way of feeding a pregnant ewe.

Using a Charollais tup will help, as he'll give smaller birthweight lambs who grow fast once born. 

BH used to produce Texel lambs from Texel cross ewes with no cake before they lambed in order to keep the birthweights down and reduce lambing interventions.  But it resulted in mums with insufficient milk.  That's SDA land in upland Cumrbia, mind, lambing outdoors.  Your girls are getting it much easier!   

[SallyintNorth]

Anke, I'm not advocating feeding animal products to herbivores, but...

There is evidence that Shetland sheep on Foula sometimes supplement their diet by eating the legs of unfledged Arctic terns.  Red deer on Rum, when they're growing their antlers, apparently eat Manx shearwater chicks, and mineral-deficient cattle in Australia have been found to search for and chew bones.

full article

[waterbuffalofarmer]

Anke, I'm not advocating feeding animal products to herbivores, but...

There is evidence that Shetland sheep on Foula sometimes supplement their diet by eating the legs of unfledged Arctic terns.  Red deer on Rum, when they're growing their antlers, apparently eat Manx shearwater chicks, and mineral-deficient cattle in Australia have been found to search for and chew bones.

full article

That reminds me I remember reading, and indeed watching on a wildlife documentary, that giraffes lacking in certain nutrients often eat bones of other dead giraffes. However this practice can, and very often is, fatal to the giraffe because of certain elements in the bones?

[Cheekierdiagram]

Anke, I'm not advocating feeding animal products to herbivores, but...

There is evidence that Shetland sheep on Foula sometimes supplement their diet by eating the legs of unfledged Arctic terns.  Red deer on Rum, when they're growing their antlers, apparently eat Manx shearwater chicks, and mineral-deficient cattle in Australia have been found to search for and chew bones.
 
Don't quote me on this but if I remember right I think the bone chewing is generally a phosphorous deficiency
full article

That reminds me I remember reading, and indeed watching on a wildlife documentary, that giraffes lacking in certain nutrients often eat bones of other dead giraffes. However this practice can, and very often is, fatal to the giraffe because of certain elements in the bones?