[farmershort]

Hi All,

As a first step along the road to our self-sufficiency aims, we're trying to find an ethically viable solution for providing a little extra nutrient to the ewes on the run up to lambing. Clearly all the commercial farmers will be using enhanced feed, or SUPAlyx type buckets in the field. I'm not even sure if Rumenco would disclose their ingredients sources, but I'm willing to bet they're not 100% sustainable and UK sourced.

The best I have found so far is the slightly rude sounding seaquim range of products. These are produced by the Glenside Group, and are apparently made from hebridean seaweed meal. There are of course the 19% sugars to figure out.... they have possibly come from uk grown sugar-beet, but I'd need to get in touch and find out. They do state that their licks are suitablefor organic systems, so that's an added string to the bow.

Does anyone know any of any others? Particularly smaller UK producers, who are more likely to be doing something creative and sustainable in this area.



EDIT: Just read that seaquim gets it's sugar content from sugar-cane molasses... I'm pretty sure that's not a local product

[farmershort]

As a follow up, I guess I should say that our alternative is to use no supplimentary feed at all. We're happy with our decision not to feed cake to the ewes, instead to keep them full of grass and hay, but this trace-nutrient debate needs a bit of thinking about. I could really do with a copy of that "stephensons the farm" to see what the old victorians did about trace elements in the run up to lambing... whether they knew about trace elements or not.

Our sheep are an older breed type, so I have some reasonable hope that our evolving system will suit them.
 

[Foobar]

Feed raw sugar beet?  Or UK sugar beet pellets. Or find a cake supplier that uses only UK ingredients - soya would be one ingredient that wouldn't be from UK I think.   Cake is cheaper than buckets anyway.

[farmershort]

Feed raw sugar beet?  Or UK sugar beet pellets. Or find a cake supplier that uses only UK ingredients - soya would be one ingredient that wouldn't be from UK I think.   Cake is cheaper than buckets anyway.

We're not 100% sure where we'll end up on this self-sufficiency drive, but generally speaking we've bee operating under the following priority order:

1) Home grown / made
2) Very very local
3) UK
4) near-Europe

obviously it depends what it is.... Our lawnmower is UK made (and likely some near-europe components)... my Car is UK made, but my partners car is near-europe made. Our wellies are french-made - there seems to be no "proper" wellies made in the UK anymore... only kids-style jelly things.

anyway, you get the point... but with something like animal feed, my feeling is that it should all be coming from the same county at the least, if not from our own farm.

With this in mind, I'm very interested in the sugar beet suggestion... I'd not considered it as a nutrient-rich food source before. I, probably wrongly, thought that is was just a suhgar source.

According to a google, the nutrients look like this:

Crude Protien - 10%
Calcium - 1g/KG
Phosphorus - 6g/KG
No Vitamin A

I can't find any info on the copper/magnesium/selenium content, if any. Perhaps that'd because they're not present in any serious way.

Sugar content varies between non-molassed and molassed SBP.... I'm not sure what the bagged pellets are.

Give the above info only.... I'm not sure that I'd be giving them anything more than a little protein and sugar. The nutritional breakdown actually looks an awful lot like meadow hay, but with added sugar.

[landroverroy]

 In reality what is truly 100% sustainable, yet local in this day and age?
 It must be difficult, if not virtually impossible, to balance the ideal with the possible without compromising the health of your animals.
 So while it is fairly easy to time your lambing and your available forage so that your sheep can manage without any major supplement, the trace element aspect is more difficult.
The Victorians were less aware of trace elements and it was less of a problem generally as much of what was taken out of the soil was put back in the form of manure. Obviously there were areas of land then, as now of known deficiencies such as copper and molybdenum etc. But they did not have the problems we have now of widespread deficiency brought about by modern farming methods.
I would suggest that possibly your best option, if you are absolutely adamant on sustainabilility,  is to gather seaweed yourself from as near as possible, get it analysed to check for overdoses of minerals, and feed that in suitable amounts.  Also get your forage and soil tested to find out what you are actually likely to be deficient in.

But if you cannot feed your sheep what they need without compromising your ideals, then what is more important - the health of your animals or doing your bit to save the planet?   

[farmershort]

In reality what is truly 100% sustainable, yet local in this day and age?
 It must be difficult, if not virtually impossible, to balance the ideal with the possible without compromising the health of your animals.
 So while it is fairly easy to time your lambing and your available forage so that your sheep can manage without any major supplement, the trace element aspect is more difficult.
The Victorians were less aware of trace elements and it was less of a problem generally as much of what was taken out of the soil was put back in the form of manure. Obviously there were areas of land then, as now of known deficiencies such as copper and molybdenum etc. But they did not have the problems we have now of widespread deficiency brought about by modern farming methods.
I would suggest that possibly your best option, if you are absolutely adamant on sustainabilility,  is to gather seaweed yourself from as near as possible, get it analysed to check for overdoses of minerals, and feed that in suitable amounts.  Also get your forage and soil tested to find out what you are actually likely to be deficient in.

But if you cannot feed your sheep what they need without compromising your ideals, then what is more important - the health of your animals or doing your bit to save the planet?   

Some good stuff there, and yes you correctly highlight the major difficulty here - wider environmental issues vs animal health. It is tricky. I suppose one thing to state is that we do not use modern farming methods anyway, and our pasture land has been almost totally left to it's own devices for 50 or 60 years. It had a few cattle on it until about 50 years ago, and since then has been cut for hay once per year, in september. It has an amazing wildflower mix, and hasn't been messed about with like so much general farm land.

We're in the process of "tidying" it up a little, but trying not to destroy this natural equilibrium that has formed.

The sheep will certainly not be heavily stocked, and we're in Devon, so the grass grows pretty well.

I like the idea of soil testing - this makes a lot of sense, and I'll look into it.

I'd not thought of the idea of gathering local seaweed, but this sounds pretty possible. There's a trade off with fuel use to collect it, but I guess we need to see what the soil testing comes back wth first.

Here's our recent water-test results from the well.... which waters both the house and the animals:

[Foobar]

Get your hay/silage tested - it *should* contain all the minerals you need - if it doesn't buy it from somewhere else (in the country).  If you are missing certain minerals either in your grass or your preserved forage then you need to drench or bolus to compensate.  Plenty of UK firms making those, can't say how sustainable the ingredients are though, prob all artificial .

[farmershort]

Get your hay/silage tested - it *should* contain all the minerals you need - if it doesn't buy it from somewhere else (in the country).  If you are missing certain minerals either in your grass or your preserved forage then you need to drench or bolus to compensate.  Plenty of UK firms making those, can't say how sustainable the ingredients are though, prob all artificial .

I didn't think hay testing would be a viable thing for individuals.... I'm waiting for a call back from Mole Valley about the soil testing, so I'll ask them about hay testing too.

I don't see buying in hay as a viable option, just because of it's sheer bulk if nothing else. If the home hay needs to supplimented is really the question I think... not whether it should be shelved in favour of something else.

[Foobar]

MVF will do forage analysis yes (grass, hay, haylage, or silage).  You would be better off getting your grass tested rather than your soil anyway, as this will tell you what the plants are actually able to get from the soil.

[clydesdaleclopper]

For the minerals could you not just buy the seaweed meal from Seaquim rather than the buckets then you avoid the sugar cane. You can put it out for them ad lib.


If you need to provide some supplementary feed you could get small sacks of whole oats or barley grown nearby and sprout them - though this depends on how many you need to do this for. This improves digestibility and means they are getting extra fibre with the grain. Longer term you may be able to grow some yourself.


You could also think about growing neeps in an area that you can let them into to graze

[Fleecewife]

We haven't had willow bark tested, so I don't know exactly which minerals it contains, but this is what we use to supplement our Hebridean sheep through the winter, in addition to their home grown meadow hay.  They strip the bark, which leaves the wood ready to dry and chop for your fire.  Other wood is popular too, but as willow grows so fast this is what we mainly use.  We have a large number of different types of willow, not the sort grown as biomass.  These flower at different times through the spring which is good for queen bumble bees coming out of hibernation, as well as a supply of insects for small birds.

[farmershort]

For the minerals could you not just buy the seaweed meal from Seaquim rather than the buckets then you avoid the sugar cane. You can put it out for them ad lib.


If you need to provide some supplementary feed you could get small sacks of whole oats or barley grown nearby and sprout them - though this depends on how many you need to do this for. This improves digestibility and means they are getting extra fibre with the grain. Longer term you may be able to grow some yourself.


You could also think about growing neeps in an area that you can let them into to graze

Yes long term we're looking into growing oats/barley as a crop, perhaps combined with a little roller machine to make them easier to digest. This is why I like the idea of soil testing, as we will need to know what missing from the soil for an arable crop. It will need lime, as it's an acidic soil, but as long as I can find a local source, that's not too bad. I wont want to be putting modern NPK fert down though.

Neeps & other root veg would naturally form part of the rotation system, so I think we'll eventually have these too. They'll also double as pig feed.

[Tim W]

1) Do you need minerals --(have you tested or seen problems)
2) Do your ewes need ''extra'' in the run up to lambing? --again , any evidence of need

I would suggest that if you lamb in the spring (April) which is when animals are born naturally then you will require nothing but grass ----works for me on a commercial scale so can't see why it wouldn't work on a smaller scale

If grass doesn't do the trick then I may think of looking for sheep that will do on grass alone (many do)

[farmershort]

1) Do you need minerals --(have you tested or seen problems)
2) Do your ewes need ''extra'' in the run up to lambing? --again , any evidence of need

I would suggest that if you lamb in the spring (April) which is when animals are born naturally then you will require nothing but grass ----works for me on a commercial scale so can't see why it wouldn't work on a smaller scale

If grass doesn't do the trick then I may think of looking for sheep that will do on grass alone (many do)

Thanks Tim - This is one of the things I was hoping to hear. Most of the sheep farmers I know are either chasing their tales for the mystical 200% lambing, or else in the pattern of "well we've always fed them". Hence the only advice I have access too generally are people saying "feed them cake" or people saying "givem them grass, hay, and supalyx". None of which seems to be very well evidences, although I wont deny their own experiences.

I'm convinced that older breeds of sheep on older systems must have thrived for sheep to become so prevelant in the UK in times before mineral analysis. We have an older-ish breed of sheep - the white faced woodland, and grazing which is much softer than that which they were designed for (yorkshire)... in theory, they should be very low input with us. That said, the nerves are building on the run-up to lambing... last week of march should be our start.

In terms of ewe health - they're all in fine fettle, and have improved condition since sale-day. There's a fairly high incidence of foot issue at the moment (sheep are sheep and all that) about 12% of the flock, and I'm just trying to get my head around this current "no foot trimming" advice when balanced against "don't overuse antibiotics". Replacing foot trimming with standard use of teramycin seems like a backward step to me...

We've not had sheep for 10 years, and 10 years ago everyone we knew would practice regular foot trimming. Many probably still do.

[Tim W]

Thanks Tim - This is one of the things I was hoping to hear. Most of the sheep farmers I know are either chasing their tales for the mystical 200% lambing, or else in the pattern of "well we've always fed them". Hence the only advice I have access too generally are people saying "feed them cake" or people saying "givem them grass, hay, and supalyx". None of which seems to be very well evidences, although I wont deny their own experiences.

I'm convinced that older breeds of sheep on older systems must have thrived for sheep to become so prevelant in the UK in times before mineral analysis. We have an older-ish breed of sheep - the white faced woodland, and grazing which is much softer than that which they were designed for (yorkshire)... in theory, they should be very low input with us. That said, the nerves are building on the run-up to lambing... last week of march should be our start.

In terms of ewe health - they're all in fine fettle, and have improved condition since sale-day. There's a fairly high incidence of foot issue at the moment (sheep are sheep and all that) about 12% of the flock, and I'm just trying to get my head around this current "no foot trimming" advice when balanced against "don't overuse antibiotics". Replacing foot trimming with standard use of teramycin seems like a backward step to me...

We've not had sheep for 10 years, and 10 years ago everyone we knew would practice regular foot trimming. Many probably still do.

It's not a ''breed type'' that determines whether or not they can cope off grass/in a low input system--- it's down to the breeding policy and culling policy of the population they come from. For many years we kept Wiltshire Horns (just using them as an example) and through keeping 250 ewes and culling very harshly we ended up with animals that raised lambs on grass alone in a commercial situation but if we ever bought in stock from other softer regimes they would inevitably fade away pretty fast
I don't think that current foot rot advice advocates replacing trimming with AB use----trimming does not help foot rot heal , the best way to treat it in the long term is to cull all repeat offenders and their offspring . If I have 1% of my 1000 ewes lame at any one time I am very worried