# Pasture grazing on extra warm winter days?



## RuralFarmGirl (Feb 18, 2017)

Hey fellow sheepers and BYHers. 
We are having some exceptionally warm winter weather. Or rather spring weather way ahead of schedule here in Michigan. It's been in the 40*s for the past week and the next week+ is predicted to hang out around 60*. There is plenty of grass our sheep could eat so I'm hoping to supplement thier diet with our portable electric fence. 
My question is about avoiding bloat from eating rich grass when they've been eating mostly grain and hay all winter. I've read in some places that you have to wait till the dew is gone so the extra water doesn't cause bloat. Is there any other precautions I need to take. 
Here are some pictures of my daughter(closely supervised by me) grazing one of our pregnant ewes for a few min yesterday!


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## Bruce (Feb 18, 2017)

People that know can answer but I would think that since the grass isn't actively growing there wouldn't be a problem. There isn't a whole lot to eat out there! My 2 alpacas were "grazing" before the snow hit this week. I have no idea what they are finding, looks pretty minimal to me. Don't know how long it will be until there is visible ground again since we got close to 2' of snow.


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## Latestarter (Feb 20, 2017)

I'm not 100% certain, but from my understanding it's like anything else regarding a change of diet... do it slowly. I imagine if you let the sheep out to graze (supervised) for 30 min to an hour or so a day and increase the time allowed by a bit each day, they should be fine.


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## RuralFarmGirl (Feb 20, 2017)

I've brought them armfuls of tall green grass I picked for them a few times and today I let them out on this(pictured). There are a lot of leaves and twigs which they've already been eating, so it's mixed. It's also pretty short green grass, so they are going to have to graze a bit to get a lot. Monitoring anyhow.  They are very happy to be out!!


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