SE Manitoba | A&M - 6/20/2025 17:25
I have always ground creep feed like hog feed all my life. So has my father and my grandfather. I’m jumping on the band wagon of not doing that anymore. Just don’t see the need to, and it cuts out a lot of bloat risk. I’ve always used a mix of soybean meal and corn +minerals. I just change the amount of soybean meal I need as they get older by reducing it.
My problem is this. I used the same mix, but without grinding the corn this year. It does not mix very even. A lot of the heavy material goes to the bottom light material to the top. Even with molasses in there. So one bite they’re taking in a bunch of energy and then later in the day they might be taking bites out of protein. That doesn’t work!! Iv got some 3 month old lambs barely touching 25-30 pounds on it. Those of you that don’t grind your corn, what’s your go to for protein and minerals? Iv looked into pellets but it’s been a wash thus far.
We do have a Hubbard feeds dealer here and they do sell pellets. But for there’s to work, You have to have oats and ground alfalfa in the mix. My grinder won’t grind our alfalfa that fine. Oats are not common here anymore.
Well - - - its all going to be hinged on what you mean by 'creep feed'.
It sounds like you are feeding it to lambs both before and after weaning - - - yes?
I will make that assumption (dangerous thing to do!!).
My creep feed (to get little lambs eating - - - starting at circa 2 to 3 weeks of age) is straight soymeal.
after they're regularly nibbling away at that (rarely see them all eating at once at this point (!!)) I start a shift.
I move to a slow introduction to as coarse a rolled dry corn as I can.
Means I start at say 20% rolled corn to soymeal increasing the corn very slowly - - like over a period of a couple weeks, to where I'm running about 65 to 75% corn and the rest is soymeal.
I'm using confinement facilities (still working on getting them to where I want things) so the lambs are also into momma's hay which is mostly high quality alfalfa (rfv 150 ish or better) and a good mixed hay (rfv 120 ish).
They actually seem to prefer the alfalfa to the creep but they are still eating at my creep mix.
At weaning is where I now start moving from rolled corn to whole corn - - - slowly again and over a period of time.
I do my own TM (trace mineral) mix and that is done using the various minerals and a small quantity of oil with a small amount of rolled corn for stickum (holding the minerals to the rolled corn).
I think I'm different in that I feed those weaned lambs some of that high quality alfalfa as well as my grain mix (I drop the soymeal after they're moving well to whole corn).
Think you might even get better gains - - - and yes sheep really don't need corn processed - - - they do a mine job one their own - - - actually seem to like the crunch of whole kernel.
Haven't tried high moisture corn nor earlage so those could possibly change things if you had them.
HTH
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Lamb creep feed. Looking to take a different path.
