Help me determine is my sheep have started “showing” in their pregnancies

[MMGardens]

You offer them Bahia, but give them the hay that they like. So what do they do? They eat the candy and refuse the vegetables. If you want them to eat the Bahia, stop giving them the candy. Wean their lambs, then dry lot them with the Bahia. No grain. They will learn to eat the Bahia.

On my old farm in northeast Texas, I planted rye grass mixed with white ball clover. I set out baking soda free choice to avoid bloat. Plus they got a round bale of Bahia and Bermuda mixed. They grazed the rye and clover, then I moved them back to the barn for the night. They got some feed, and hit the hay bale. They needed the dry grass.

Is there a certain reason I should push the lower quality lower nutrition hay on them if they aren’t fat?

If I buy Bermuda hay and it’s pretty green when I buy it, but I get a lot of bales and by the time I put out the last two they are mostly brown and dryer, they refuse the last two because they aren’t green anymore. So it doesn’t seem to be about the type as much as how fresh and green it still is. I kinda assumed they knew what they needed and if they would rather roam all over looking for forage than eat brown hay then it mustn’t be worth eating to them right? I’m not feeding the non lactating ewes anything fancy. Of course they all go crazy for alfalfa hay, but I’m just getting “2 string coastal Bermuda hay” from tractor supply. Its the cheapest hay bales they have for feed hay, they are just being extremely choosey with the state of the hay not the type


I really don’t know a lot about hay in terms of what types are for what and what first cut and second cut are and the differences. I buy the Bermuda hay for my rams and whethers and open ewes and I buy the alfalfa hay for my lactating ewes and ewe lambs which was what the vet recommended. It’s kinda hard to find a whole bunch of different hays where I am, i think they mostly grow the same types of hay here

 

[Baymule]

If they like the Bermuda, try to find someone baling square bales and buy it out of the field. If you have a place to store it, it will save you money to buy it that way.