When we talk about feeding our sheep, typically the most important component is quality hay. As you probably know, sheep are designed to eat a diet mainly consisting of grass, and need to do so to stay healthy. Unfortunately while hay is a critically important part of your animal’s diet, it is often the hardest portion to reliably source. Even when sourcing hay from the same producer and field, hay crops can vary widely in quality from year to year. Today we are going to talk about what to look for in good hay for sheep.
Lets dispel a few myths first!
Firstly it is important to note that there is a myth floating around that large round bales of hay are not quality hay. This is entirely untrue. Any bale of hay of any size or shape can be good or bad, depending on how it was produced and stored. Don’t judge a bale of hay by its size or shape. Round bales are significantly less expensive to purchase, and can be of excellent quality if baled and stored properly.
Another myth that you often see floating around regarding sheep is that they are just ‘little cows’ and that you can and should feed them crappy hay. This is also not true. If you want your animals to be healthy and productive, you need to feed them quality food. Your sheep might survive on the cheapest crap you can find, but they are unlikely to perform their best. Maximizing your lambing rate, and producing big healthy lambs requires quality nutrition. Thus it is in your best interest to feed your sheep good quality hay.
So what are we looking for in hay?
You are looking for ‘horse quality’ hay. Horses (and horse owners) are picky about their hay. Horse quality hay is stored inside and is dry, not moldy, and baled at the proper time to be high in nutrition. Horse quality hay is the producer’s premium hay product. You will pay a little more for it, but it is worth the extra expense.
Hay marketed as ‘cow’ or ‘cow and goat’ hay is not good for feeding sheep. This hay is often dusty or moldy, and can be coarse and low nutrition because it was baled too late. Sometimes it is dry and not moldy, but is full of unpalatable or low nutrition weeds. Sheep have delicate respiratory systems and are prone to issues like pneumonia, so feeding them moldy/dusty hay is not a good idea. Sheep are also much pickier about their hay than cows, so they aren’t going to volunteer to eat moldy hay, or unpalatable species either.
Another thing you should look for is hay that is of a fine texture
Sheep do not like coarse textured hay, and in our experience texture is more important than species. For example, Orchard Grass is often considered a premium hay species. It can make beautiful hay, and sheep find it very palatable. However, usually first cutting is too coarse textured for sheep. They will go through and pick out all the leaves leaving all the stems resulting in waste of 50% or more.
When you are looking at hay it should have been stored inside and smell sweet and be bright green.
Both of these traits are key. Hay has a very distinct, unmistakable sweet smell to it. If the hay smells musty avoid it, it is most likely full of mold inside the bale even if it does not appear so externally.
If you are buying bales of hay that have been stored inside an open building that allows the sun to shine in one end of it, the sun exposed surfaces of the hay bales may become sun bleached to a golden brown color. This does not necessarily mean the hay is bad. If you think the bales are just sun bleached on the surface check and make sure they are bright green inside. Sun bleaching will not affect more than a thin outside layer on the bale.
However there is another scenario you might encounter that you should be aware of
That scenario is heat damaged hay. Heat damaged hay can be harder for someone new to selecting hay to pick out as bad hay. It has a sort of dark caramelized brown color (as opposed to golden brown from sun bleaching) and has a pleasant smell like sweet caramelized hay or tobacco. While it is not bright green colored, to someone unexperienced at selecting hay heat damaged hay may seem to fit the criteria of good hay because it is sweet smelling and not moldy. Animals even typically find it to be quite palatable.
Heat damaged hay is hay that was baled to wet. The bale(s) heated up, but fortunately not to the point where they spontaneously combusted. Unfortunately despite it being palatable, heat damaged hay is very low in nutrition. The heating process causes the sugars and proteins in the hay to form insoluble complexes that the animals are unable to digest. Often these bales are also extremely moldy on the interior from the extra moisture, and they are best avoided if at all possible.
Realistically though, sometimes things happen
You might have purchased what you thought was beautiful hay off the field only to find out a few months later when you start feeding it that it heated and damaged the hay, or a bale ended up moldy. Moldy hay should be thrown out and not be fed if at all possible as it can make them sick. If you do have to feed hay with moldy patches in it, be sure to feed it outdoors in a well ventilated place. Ideally this hay would be spread out on the ground where the sheep could pick through it easily.
If you accidentally end up with some heat damaged hay, it is not harmful to feed it, and it will still meet the sheep’s requirements for long stemmed fiber. However, it should only be fed to animals that have low nutritional requirements (such as dry ewes or mature rams), or it should be diluted/supplemented with better quality feed to make up for its nutritional shortcomings. If you are feeding poor quality hay, make sure that your animals are not losing body condition or lacking protein in their diets. Additionally, heat damaged hay often has moldy patches in it. It is a good idea to feed the hay somewhere the sheep can pick through it to select the good portions. There might be a lot of waste.
We hope this helps all the new shepherds out there find the best food for their sheep!
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