Wet Feeding Your Lamb Wet feeding is the process of adding water to your lamb's grain or feed before serving it to your lamb. The advantages definately outweight the disadvantages of wet feeding because the only real disadvantage to wet feeding your lamb is that it takes a little more time than just pouring feed to your lamb. The largest benefit of wet feeding is that it almost totally eliminates the probability of your lamb choking while eating. Many lambs have choked to death eating dry rations. The majority of sheep are pigs and love to eat. They chow down quickly, especially if they are competing for food. The faster they eat, the greater the chance that they will choke. A wise shepherd always liked to compare wet feeding to eating rice crispies. She said that feeding dry grain was like eating dry cereal for people. If you add milk to your cereal, it goes down much easier. The same goes for sheep. Add water and the feed will go down easier. Wet feeding also eliminates feed dust. This dust can cause coughing in lambs, which can lead to more problems. Some shepherds even believe that wet feeding increases feed efficiency and cuts down on stomach disorders. Wet feeding is also great during show time. Often, we have to pull or hold water from lambs before a show. If your lamb is used to being wet fed, it will still be getting enough water for its body by eating. By consuming water while eating, your lamb is also less likely to go tank up on water after its meal. Some shows don't allow exhibitors to drench their lambs. If your lamb is accustomed to wet feed, you can add your lamb's drench to their feed and the sheep will never even know it. Sheep that are wet fed will keep their teeth longer, which is great for show regulations. How to Start Wet Feeding If you have decided you would like to switch your lamb over to a wet feeding program, good for you. Introducing water to the feed must be done gradually, or else your lamb may reject its feed altogether. If you have just received your lamb, I wouldn't recommend jumping in and start wet feeding immediately. Newly arrived lambs or sheep are already stressed and if you start switching their routine immediately, it will only further stress them. I recommend waiting about a week after you get your lamb before starting to wet feed. This gives the lamb enough time to adjust to its new surroundings and to you. To start wet feeding, I use a spray bottle and just spray the surface of the feed down before feeding my lamb. Most lambs won't even notice that there is water on their feed. Then, each day, or every other day, add a little more water than the previous time. Some lambs are never bothered by the water, while it may take others a little more time to adjust to eating it. If your lamb refuses to eat when you add more water, you may have added too much water too fast so return to the amount of water they were comfortably eating at before, and then gradually add more water. Different people wet feed at different levels. Some like their lamb's feed to have the consistency of pancake batter, while others like theirs more like soup and the lambs literally drink their feed. Before you know it, your lambs will love drinking their meals. You may have some who find it odd that you feed wet, but in the long run, it's best for your sheep. |
This page was last updated on: January 7, 2005
The Lambinators 4-H Club of Scioto County, Ohio |
