Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Bottle Feeding
Bottle-fed lambs require extra care. Never overfeed. It's better to under-
feed than to have a sick lamb, which happens easily with bottle-fed babies.
Overfeeding can cause a type of scours, or diarrhea, that can be deadly. Bottle-
fed lambs are also more prone to bacterial and viral infections.
During bottle feeding, cleanliness is critical to lamb survival. Keep bot-
tles, nipples, and milk containers clean. Keep milk refrigerated, warming it at
feeding time. Use care if warming in a microwave oven, because it can easily
become too hot, and a lamb with a scalded mouth won't do well.
Nutrients perform three basic functions for an animal: they support structural
development, which includes strengthening bones, muscles, tendons, wool,
and skin; they provide energy; and they regulate body functions. Although
each type of nutrient (proteins, vitamins and minerals, water, carbohydrates,
and fats) helps with more than one of these basic functions, each has a role
at which it excels.
ENERGY
Energy keeps the body warm and enables an animal to do work
(like growing or reproducing). It's also considered the most com-
mon limiting nutrient for sheep, meaning that it's least often found
in suffi cient quantities in their diet. Fats are the prime source of
energy, with carbohydrates also providing a signifi cant amount.
Grains like corn and oats, sweet treats like apples and molasses,
and beans and nuts can all help satisfy energy needs.
Pasture that's growing well and kept in a vegetative state pro-
vides some energy, but may not provide enough, and as it becomes
rank and overly mature, the energy level of pasture declines signifi -
cantly. As a rule of thumb, cool-season grasses (those that grow in
the spring and fall) are high in protein when vegetative but lower in
energy. When kept vegetative, the warm-season grasses (those that
grow in the summer months) are lower in protein than the cool-
season grasses, but have more energy than do their cool-season
counterparts.
