Fed for sheep

[Smithy]

The mineral I use is a custom formula for our area from Champion in Westlock. It has no copper and extra selenium because our soil (and hay) has very little. It also has the A, D & E added.

[DogPatch]

Keep an eye on your Ca to P Most sheep minerals for some reason are pretty close to 1:1. Grass hays, and grain are both in excess of P (compared to Ca). In combination you will experience problems during lambing especially if you have other stresses like the weather happening. Keep your high alfalfa content forages for around lambing time. Since a sheep's stomach capacity is greatly reduced if she is carrying twins plus, you might have to expect to supplement with another high Ca food.

[DogPatch]

Kato...... since you have a good starter flock, a good way to get Vitamin ADE into them, is through a water trough. Liquid ADE should still be available at your local outlets. Some sheep might not drink water, as most ewes I know would prefer to eat snow.....

[grassfarmer]

Interesting for me as a former sheep guy. All the talk
of mineral supplements and lick tubs and such. We
had 5-600 ewes a year over my and my fathers
lifetime and we never fed minerals - millions of other
sheep in the UK would be the same and the soils are a
lot more leached and mineral deficient there than in
Western Canada. Only thing we supplemented was
cobalt put in the worm dose for fattening lambs in
the fall and copper injection to the pregnant ewes 2cc
x 2 doses two months apart to prevent swayback.
Copper doesn't poison sheep if you are on copper
deficient land.
Lick tubs for sheep are the same as cattle lick tubs -
a real expensive way to supplement energy.

[kato]

The lick tub is short term, for a pre-breeding flush, so to speak. I guess we'll find out at the end of April if it worked or not. All thirteen ewes seem to have caught on the first breeding, and considering half of them were bottle feds, and the ram is the same age as them, I'm pretty happy with that. I wasn't even sure if they'd cycle in time, but I guess I must have done something right.