When producers consider sheep or goat performance, their first thought likely focuses on selection practices that focus on genetics to produce lambs and kids that perform well. However, producers must also develop a nutritional program to feed pregnant and nursing females to ensure their lambs or kids perform well. This nutritional program begins with understanding the nutritional value of the forage that those ewes and does consume.
This year's weather created a considerable challenge for producers in harvesting high-quality hay. It rained, and it rained, and it rained some more last spring. By the time the rain showers slowed, the forage had matured, and quality had declined. This leads me to emphasize the importance of balancing late gestation and lactation diets using a forage analysis report.
For example, estimating your forage quality at a higher protein level than the forage contains can result in decreased milk production, leading to lower weaning weights. Let’s consider a small flock of 25 ewes or does that produce 35 lambs or kids to sell, and those lambs or kids wean at an average of 5 pounds lighter than you expect. This scenario would result in a total of 175 pounds less when marketed and equate to a loss of $437.50 when sold at $2.50 per pound. You can run many forage sample analyses for $437.50! Now, look at your flock or herd and consider what you might be losing in total weaning weight when selling your lambs or kids.