Help! How much hay?

[toasterburn]

This will be my first winter with livestock. Right now I have three katahdin sheep and one standard size donkey. So far, they have been completely pasture fed, but I'm running out of grass and I want to make sure they have enough hay for winter.

How much do I need to store up for the winter? And how much should I feed them each day? For example, should I give them a set ration each day, or should I give them as much as they can eat? I have talked to a few local farmers, and gotten wildly different answers. (I experimented by giving them a square hay bale this week, and they ate it all in two days.)

Can anyone help me out?

 

[heatherlynnky]

Ok We have 2 horses, a cow, and 3 little goats and we went through close to 100 square bales of hay last winter and 5 round bales. Thats a Kentucky winter last year which was HORRID and LONG. The cow had 2 of those round bales and broke into the hay barn... I would think 100 square bales. We are always over prepared but I still feed hay well into spring and even into the summer when everything is dead and shriveled up. So we get enough to last.

Can do it by math too. Budget 4 bales per week for 12 weeks and you would only need 50 for winter. I always get more than I need though because if you need it out of season its always more expensive or impossible to find.

 

[SheepGirl]

A 154 lb sheep in maintenance requires 1.7% of their body weight in dry matter daily. So three 154 lb sheep x 1.7% = 7.854 lbs of dry matter. If the average grass hay is 90% dry matter, figure on feeding 8.727 lbs of hay to meet the dry matter requirement of three sheep. However, you need to calculate for waste also, about 10%, so figure on putting out about 9.6 lbs of hay per day. So every week you will be going through 1.68 40-lb bales of hay.

Usually grass hay has enough nutrients to meet the maintenance needs of sheep, however feed a loose mineral to make sure everythings covered.

 

[mysunwolf]

SheepGirl, I have always heard that sheep require 3% of their body weight in dry matter daily! Have you found any internet resources from livestock publications that might have the "right" number? From Sheep and Goat it says 1.5-2%, but I know it depends on the quality of the dry matter. I assume it would also differ depending on how "grass fed" the operation is and how much grain is going to the sheep as supplement.

 

[secuono]

I use small hole horse nibble nets on my sheep as well, really helps keep the waste down. Using anything else, I might as well throw the hay on the grown myself.

 

[SheepGirl]

SheepGirl, I have always heard that sheep require 3% of their body weight in dry matter daily! Have you found any internet resources from livestock publications that might have the "right" number? From Sheep and Goat it says 1.5-2%, but I know it depends on the quality of the dry matter. I assume it would also differ depending on how "grass fed" the operation is and how much grain is going to the sheep as supplement.

that figure was straight out of my sheep production handbook written by the american sheep industry. Goats are usually 3% and sheep generally avg around 2%.