One question that I cannot find a definitive answer to is the yearly battle I have with myself about the creep-feeding of lambs.

Concentrate junkies will argue that lamb thrive is just too slow and difficult without daily meal feeding. Equally, forceful opinions will come from the opposite direction, with grassland managers claiming that meal feeding is just an excuse to cover up poor farm practice. I stand with a foot in several camps, wishing I had the confidence to come down on one side or the other. In truth, the whole debate is a bit blurred at the edges, with no black and white answers.

Over the past few years, I have refused to creep-feed February- and March-born lambs – my reasoning being that a lowland farm that isn’t too heavily stocked should aim to produce lambs off grass for as little cost as possible. But, more often than not, I have looked back at the end of the season, and thought that a certain amount of early summer feeding of lambs would have made life a lot easier and, maybe, more profitable.

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There will always be exceptional years (both good and bad), and flexibility will be crucial to the success of any system, but last year’s awful spring taught me a few new lessons.

I was only feeding one batch of lambs. These were triplets, or doubles that were being reared by an inadequate mother. Despite being potentially the worst lambs on the farm, by the end of June I was getting more lambs at marketable weight than from my ‘good’ batches.

This does not mean that everything should be fed as if meal is free, but nor should we ignore the implications of operating on a lower input system of management.

When lambs are managed in this more traditional manner and finished off grass in October and November, the extra cost of fertilizer has to be included.

But, more importantly, running lambs until late in the season ties up extra grazing that should have been available for the ewes. Silage is no longer some sort of cheap option for ewes during early pregnancy. In addition, plenty of lambs that should perhaps have been fed six months earlier are offered meal at this late stage.

Clearcut

Lessons from best agricultural practice aren’t much help either, since these spell out the situation as if the answers are clearcut.

Some textbook recommendations maintain that there is no point in feeding anything except January-born lambs. I simply disagree with the notion that by grazing sheep and lambs on leafy grass, lambs will easily finish without the use of concentrate.

For anyone with dirty grass (ie grazing that sees only sheep year on year), a lack of lamb thrive may be something with which they are familiar. Certainly, on this farm, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that, in the absence of clean grazing, I would creep-feed every lamb around the place.

I try to alternate fields annually between cattle and sheep, but can only do this with about half of the flock. The difference between lambs on clean grass and sheep-only fields is huge. This is despite dosing lambs on time, and keeping the sward quality as high as possible. I believe that far more research should be conducted into the effects of dirty pasture on both ewes and lambs.

Trigger

I had virtually made up my mind last winter that I would creep-feed far more lambs this spring and early summer. Of course, that was the trigger for one of the best periods of grass growth that anyone can remember and, at the end of April, I had to make a big decision: to creep or not to creep?

In the end, I have decided to feed the pet lambs (because they look as if they might die otherwise) one batch containing triplets and ewe lamb doubles, and a flock of 60 ewes (with lambs) that have no access to clean grazing. The kind spring, combined with a bit of clean grazing, persuaded me to let the remaining lots (about 190 ewes with lambs) perform from grass only. It will be interesting to see how they compare.

The last word should belong to my laconic neighbour. Just as I had come to terms with this much-considered topic of buying meal in May, he drove past at the exact moment I was tipping a few bags of lamb blend into the creep-feeder. As the feed rattled into the hopper, he casually said: “I see you’re pouring the pound coins down the lambs’ throats then?”

Some people just have a way with words, don’t they?