I'm rotating about 10 pregnant/lactating ewes 1 very pregnant Jersey and a handful of Boer goats together. The pasture they're on at the moment was pretty sparse to begin with but recent frost really did it in. My question is I can get 4 square bales for the same price as a round bale of coastal so anybody have any opinions on which would be better for the animals grass and soil?
4 bales of Alfalfa or 1 round bale of coastal?
- Thread starter Sasmith
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mysunwolf
Herd Master
I personally am too cheap to buy alfalfa hay, I'd buy the coastal and then supplement with a little grain or alfalfa pellets.
I buy alfalfa for my goats, but they're VERY spoiled... Everything else I've tried, they don't like. I would go with the round bale (cheaper) and see how they do with it. As Mysunwolf said, you can always supplement additional protein and the like if needed.
I have fed high quality alfalfa hay cut at 10% bloom so that the stems are soft to hundreds of sheep every year when the pastures turn brown in late Spring through fall due to lack of rainfall. I also supplemented the weaned lambs with cracked corn, rolled oats and barley to fatten for market. I also flushed the ewes with this grain mixture starting in early July to increase twinning for the breeding season in early August. I never experienced any issues with calcium inballance.
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Our sheep and goats are anything but spoiled. We've been on our property for a little over a year and this is the first time they've seen any sort of supplements other than free choice minerals. I guess at the moment I'd like to have the ewes lamb around October and have last year's lambs be ready for market around the same time. After watching them this last year on just pasture I realize that even though they've survived fine I'm probably going to need to start giving them more them be really high quality and I'm just trying to figure out a feeding routine. At least for the winter months
