Sheep Winter Feeding Management · PDF fileSheep Management Calendar: Late Pregnancy...
Transcript of Sheep Winter Feeding Management · PDF fileSheep Management Calendar: Late Pregnancy...
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Sheep Winter Feeding Management
Lisa Surber, PhD
WestFeeds Livestock Nutritionist
Photo credit Dwane Morvik
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Ewe Nutrition:
• Proper ewe nutrition during pregnancy is essential to optimize productivity
• Feed costs are the largest single cost of maintaining ewes
• What are your biggest concerns about nutritional management of your flock??
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Sheep Management Calendar:
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Maintenance and Flushing
• Proper nutrition during dry and breeding season sets the stage for maintaining BCS during the remaining production cycle
• Allows ewes to go into gestation in average+ BC
• How many utilize BCS in their flock??
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Sheep Management Calendar:
• Early/Mid Pregnancy (1st 100 days)
• Late Pregnancy (last 50 days)
• Early Lactation
• 70% of the feed required to produce a weaned lamb is consumed by the ewe
• Ewe cost is reduced when spread of more and/or heavier lambs
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Sheep Management Calendar: Early Pregnancy
• 1 month after breeding
• Most critical to success of lambing season
• Embryonic implantation (20-24 d)
• 1/3 of embryos are lost during early pregnancy
• Avoid unnecessary activity
• Avoid drastic changes in nutrition
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Sheep Management Calendar: Mid Pregnancy
• What’s occurring?• Mammary gland development (30 – 90 d)
• Placental development (30 -90 d)
• Wool follicles forming (35 – 100 d)
• Fetal programming
• Quantity of nutrients is more important than quality of nutrients
• Avoid over or under feeding ewes• Weight gain is minimal
• 0.10 lb per day
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Sheep Management Calendar: Mid Pregnancy• The lamb's future wool production is affected
by ewe nutrition during pregnancy• Primary follicle (large fibers) development d 60 -
90
• Secondary follicles (fine fibers) develop d 90 to birth, with some follicle maturation occurring in the first month of the lamb's life.
• Secondary follicles directly influence on the density and fineness of the fleece
• A reduction in nutrient supply (either because of poor nutrition or because there are multiples competing for nutrients) impacts fiber diameter but also fleece weight!
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Nutrient Requirements of 154 lb ewe
2.62.9
3.2
3.7
1.4 1.51.7
2
0.25 0.36 0.26 0.32
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
Maintenance Flushing 1st 15 wk Gestation 1st 15 wk Gestation 2+
DM TDN CP
Ewes need only slightly above maintenance levels of nutrition for the first 15 weeks of pregnancy
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Sheep Management Calendar: Late Pregnancy
• Last 4 to 6 weeks MOST IMPORTANT TIME
• What’s occurring?• Rapid fetal growth (2/3 of fetal growth)
• Reduced rumen capacity
• Mammary development
• Nutrient restrictions will result in:• Lighter BW lambs
• Unequal BW twin and triplet lambs
• Reduced mothering instinct
• Lower milk production
• Increased early lamb loss
• May increase risk for Pregnancy Toxemia
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Nutrient Requirements of 154 lb ewe
3.2
3.74 4
1.72 2.1
2.7
0.26 0.32 0.42 0.47
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
1st 15 wk Gestation 1st 15 wk Gestation 2+ Late Gestation Late Gestation 2+
DM TDN CP
Ewes carrying singles require 50% more energy and ewes carrying multiples require 75% more energy than ewes in early gestation.
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Sheep Management Calendar: Late Pregnancy
• Ewes on traditional forage diets generally will not be able to consume enough forage to meet their daily energy needs.
• In these cases, supplementation is necessary• Energy requirement goes up the most
• When quantity of forage is limited• ½ to 1 lbs of grain for lower lambing rate
• 1 to 2 lbs of grain for higher lambing rate
• When quality of the forage is limited a protein supplement is most appropriate
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• The nutrients that are important during late gestation are energy, protein, calcium, selenium, and vitamin E.
• The amount of energy required depends upon the number of fetuses and cold stress.
• Winter lambing ewes usually cannot consume enough forage to meet their energy needs.
• More energy is required two weeks before lambing versus six weeks before lambing.
• Ewes carrying singles do not need to receive grain as early as those carrying multiple births.
Sheep Management Calendar: Late Pregnancy
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Sheep Management Calendar: Late Pregnancy• Supplement vs no supplement
• 2 out 3 years supplementation is needed (Van Horn)
• Protein vs. energy supplementation• 1 out of 2 years protein is most effective
especially when ewes cannot select a diet higher than 5% CP (Thomas)
• Frequency of supplementation• Greater opportunity for animals in poor
condition to get part of the supplement
• Vitamin E supplementation• Improves lamb survivability especially under
poor nutrition (Thomas & Kott)
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Supplemental products:• Higher quality forages if available
• Grains/Energy supplements (Not enough CP to utilization)
• Protein supplements• Natural
• Urea-based: an economical replacement for a part of the protein in a ration
• Biuret-based
Urea
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What are the consequences of poor nutrition during pregnancy?
Overfeeding -
• Dystocia
• Wasting money
Underfeeding -
• Pregnancy toxemia (ketosis)
• Hypocalcemia (low blood Ca milk fever)
• Weaker lambs
• Higher neonatal mortality
• Quantity and quality of colostrum
• Less milk production
• Fewer secondary follicles in offspring
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Pregnancy Toxemia (Ketosis, Twin Lamb Disease)• Metabolic disease of pregnant ewes near
term
• Occurs in older ewes carrying multiple lambs and in extremely thin or overly fat ewes
• Caused by a diet deficient in energy during late pregnancy when fetal growth is occurring very rapidly.
• Can be prevented by preventing ewes from becoming overly fat in early pregnancy and to provide sufficient energy during the last four to six weeks of gestation.
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Sheep Management Calendar: Shearing
• Shearing occurs ½ to 1 ½ months ahead of lambing
• During late gestation when nutrient demands are already high
• Nutrient requirements increase by 25 -30% because of shearing
• Full fleece can mask a thin ewe
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Ewe responses to severe cold stress:
• Ewes that lose weight because of prolonged cold stress, lamb in poor condition • Increase in the number of lighter, weak
lambs
• Higher lamb mortality
• Produce a reduced amount of colostrum (of lower quality)
• Lower milk production
• Reduced growth rate in surviving lambs
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Newborn nutrition:• Colostral fat in true colostrum is essential for
newborn lambs
• Colostrum gives the lamb critical nutrients for it to use in maintaining his body temperature in those first critical hours of life
• Ability to absorb the antibodies contained in colostrum decreases rapidly with age • Full dose of colostrum within the first 6-12 hours
following birth
• Lambs born to well nourished, healthy mothers have an advantage• Brown fat
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Newborn lamb and brown fat:
• Newborn lambss lose considerable amounts of heat • Large skin surface area relative to body mass• Limited insulation
• Lambs are very susceptible to hypothermia, especially when they are born in cold and wet conditions
• Newborn ruminant should have lots of brown fat• Specialized tissue capable of generating heat to help the newborn maintain its core
body temperature during cold
• Half of this cold-induced heat comes from shivering in muscle tissue with the remainder coming from brown fat thermogenesis (production of heat within an animal), also known as non-shivering thermogenesis
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Brown fat or brown adipose tissue:
• Located around the kidneys, brown fat is a light tan to reddish- brown color due to the dense accumulation of blood vessels and mitochondria• Structures that produce energy in cells
• Lambs born to ewes that are underfed the last trimester will have less functional brown fat
• Research has suggested that inadequate levels of copper and selenium fed to pregnant ewes may impair brown fat thermogenesis of newborn animals
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Sheep Management Calendar: Early Lactation
• Highest nutrient requirements• Young > Mature
• Twins > Singles
• Triplets > Twins
• Accelerated > Annual
• Needs a more nutrient dense ration
• General rules of thumb…1 lb of grain for each lamb a ewe is nursing
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Sheep Management Calendar: Early Lactation
• Important to come into lambing with a BCS of 3 to 3.5
• Most ewes will lose weight during lactation
• Weight loss during lactation affects protein requirements
• The more weight ewes lose, the higher their protein requirement will be
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Sheep Management Calendar: Early Lactation
• Growth rate of lambs from birth to weaning is determined by milk production of the ewe
• Lactation also gives the producer an opportunity to control feed costs by splitting into management groups
• Target: 70% TDN and 14% CP
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Nutrient Requirements of 154 lb ewe
4 44.3 4.4
2.1
2.7
2.3
2.9
0.42 0.470.73
0.92
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
Late Gestation Late Gestation 2+ Early Lactation Early Lactation 2+
DM TDN CP
CP requirement almost doubles
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Straw
25 lbs DM
28 lbs as fed
Alfalfa5 lbs DM
5.6 lb as fedSBM
1.9 lb DM
2.1 lbs as fed
0.9 lbs of crude protein(daily requirement for a 150 lb ewewith twins at peak lactation)
How much feed = .9 lbs of CP?
Corn
11 lbs DM
12.5 lbs as fed
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Mineral Supplementation• Besides energy and protein, there are several
macro and micro minerals that are especially important during gestation and lactation• Calcium
• Requirements go up substantially in late gestation as the fetus grows and during lactation
• Selenium and Vitamin E (0.3 ppm, 7 IU/lb DM)• Essential for breeding, gestation, lactation, neonate
survival and immunity• White Muscle Disease (degeneration of skeletal and
cardiac muscles) • Zinc (30 ppm)
• Enhanced hoof health and immune response
• Promote year round use but can be used strategically (60 days prior to stressful events)
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How many of you utilize TM salt blocks for your sheep?• American Stockman TM Salt contains 280 ppm
copper.
• Provides almost 8 mg copper per ounce.
• Recommended copper allowance for lambs is 8-10 mg/kg diet dry matter, or total of 18-22 mg for a sheep eating 4-5 lbs of dry forage.
• If you subtract what might be provided by the forage (e.g. 12-18 mg), there isn’t a lot of room for supplemental copper, unless the forage is low in copper, or there are antagonists like iron, sulfates, or molybdenum, that reduce available copper.
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Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD)
• Ends the use of medically-important antimicrobials to enhance livestock performance
• Transitions many of the feed medications that are currently available “over-the-counter” into the VFD drug category
• Places the use of VFD animal drugs in or on animal feed under the professional supervision of a licensed veterinarian (must have a Veterinarian-Client-Patient Relationship)
• Requires producers to obtain written VFD orders from a licensed veterinarian to purchase and utilize the VFD antimicrobials on or in feed
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Sheep Feeding Strategies:• Just like with the cow herd the goal is to
maximize the use of standing forage
• Use supplementation to substitute either a lack of quantity or quality forages
• Split your flock and strategically supplement the ewes that need more and/or better feed
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Additional Thoughts:• Test your forages
• Many feed companies offer services for customers
• Balance rations to reduce waste• On-line ration programs• SheepBytes
• More detailed animal inputs• BCS• Environment• Also allows water in ration• Excellent reports
• Take advantage of learning opportunities and seek out mentors
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Sheep Feeding Myth:
• My sheep can get by on nothing and snow…
Photo credit Dwane Morvik
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Is she coming out of winter with two lambs and a quality fleece?
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Lisa Surber, PhD
Work Address: 81 Timberline Drive
Bozeman, MT 59718
Personal Address: PO Box 5080
Bozeman, MT 59717
Phone number: 406-581-7772
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