How much do you feed pregnant Babydoll sheep | The (tried and tested) step feeding guide for Babydoll Southdown Ewes.

Eating for two or three or four? This is the crucial question - because folks, it’s a really fine balance - a science even, caring for pregnant ewes running up to lambing time. The following first-hand account is for Babydolls living in the UK - e.g. our weather climate (so indoors ) and the food references. This is an honest and personal account - no sponsorship or affiliation to anyone, just my personal recommendation of what works for our girls!

If you only have a few sheep scanners will still come to you at the end of their working day

Firstly, scanning the sheep is essential; you can not meet the nutritional needs without knowing if they are pregnant and carrying how many babies! This year, we’ve got 100% in lamb, and all but two are twins (well done, Dennis, Cookie, Winston & Romeo!)

When researching my first Babydoll lambing season, I remember I downloaded a feeding guide from NSA and when I weighed out the huge quantities. I was a little shocked and really concerned. I’d done all my homework on why I needed to support my girls with extra concentrate but the standard guide really didn’t look right for Babydoll sheep.

This is due to the fact miniature Babydolls are obviously so much smaller and lighter than the average standard sheep. They are also prone to putting on weight, BIG TIME …. If you overfeed, it’s so quick to pile on and takes months, sometimes a couple of years, to lose what can be life-threatening excess weight - how do I know this - because I’ve learnt the hard way. Body score condition BSC is the way to measure the sheep’s body fat feeling the short runs- the area on either side of the spine and you can feel the condition through the fleece easily there.

I’ll make a full confession that if you don’t have “locks” on the food bins, your sheep are probably going to get into them. Two years ago, my beloved Custard and Bluebelle did a daily raid worthy of a job at MI5…. Quietly discovering a route, making their way from the paddock (lambs in tow) behind the hay store into the open barn to gorge on my loosely topped food bin which I thought was secure. The result was that Bluebelle was very quickly obese, which took effort and another 24 months to really get back to a healthy weight score.

So knowing that my girls are prone to weight gain but also frequently carry twins it’s a fine balance between meeting the incredible demands that lambing put on the ewe's body and NOT UNDER FEEDING. Twin lambs disease or toxemia is always a real danger.

So why can ewes suffer from twin lambs disease? The lamb's growth rate rapidly increases 6 - 4 weeks before lambing. The high demand for glucose from the rapidly growing lamb outstrips the ability of the ewe to provide it. This is most common when carrying twins or triplets hence called twin lamb disease.

As a result of the high demand for glucose, the ewe starts to rapidly break down her own body fat reserves and this produces chemicals called ketones, which rapidly build up in the blood.

High levels of ketones have serious consequences, making the ewe feel dull and unwell. Other things can trigger it: stress, moving sheep very late, bad weather resulting in not eating enough, but to read more detail on twin lambs disease, pregnancy, and click here.https://www.fwi.co.uk/livestock/sheep/guide-preventing-twin-lamb-disease

It’s worth adding that the flock has all thrived on my nutrition plan —the older the ewes need more help. I slightly tweak it each year and last year I swopped the usual high-energy vitamin lick buckets, for the Lifeline Ewe and Lamb bucket which i think improved milk and colostrum with the added fish oil. They have ad-lib access to hay, and the following schedule of extra glucose high-energy ewe nut concentrate.

I’ll also add that I have a routine of feeding time and I stick to it for a couple of reasons. When the sheep anticipate the regular feeding times, their rumen is stimulated which helps digest the concentrate to the rumen. Feeding time can also be stressful; the routine makes them more relaxed. I can walk in and around them at other times of the day, and they know the times of feeding and when I'm not.

Instead of splitting up the sheep into singles and twins and then feeding them together from a trough, I feed all the sheep with their own bucket of weighed-out food (a name taped onto each one).

This is because there are some of my sheep ( I won’t shame them) that are quite simply greedy and boisterous and will think nothing of barging another sheep completely out of a communal trough, eating way through more than their fair share and depriving the others of their much-needed boost. This year it took 2 days to train the three ain culprites to go into their own pens and locked in so that they could eat their ration and then not go on to steal everyone elses! So I take the buckets in the pen, and each ewe sticks her head in her bucket and doesn’t surface until she’s done! I can give exact quantities per sheep, monitor the older ewes and boost them if need be.

*Be aware that the sheep’s rumen is extremely sensitive and an imbalance of PH can lead to bloat and acidosis . Feeding too much concentrate reduces the pH of the rumen, which impacts digestive efficiency - in summary, introducing new food in too high a quantity can literally kill - quickly and painfully suffocated from a bloated stomach, squashing the air from its lungs.

There are four main factors to consider in your nutrition plan for your pregnant pet babydolls.

1.) How many lambs are scanned inside.

2.) Overall body score condition - under condition, good or over weight (under or over can trigger toxemia).

3.) The age of ewe and any previous history you have of her.

4.) The due date of the lambs.

With these facts you can create an individual plan per sheep that considers her age, condition, nutritional demand from the number of lambs all in a step plan from 8/6 weeks to due date.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/4c134c_382713909f624d878c5f39e6beff84a3/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

I keep a record of the lambing feed each year so i can build a picture of the individual needs, larger babydolls need more feed, smaller ewes carrying twins may need three feeds as there just isn't the room for two big feeds. In this case i also dose with Bi Carb and elctrolytes to off set the risk of acidosis.

That said, it’s clear you need to build up the concentration levels over the weeks so that they can safely digest it. Also, I always feed in two batches per day—split to mid-morning so that they’ve already eaten plenty of hay, e.g., 10.30 am and again at 6.30 pm. In the case of triplets that Stompy is carrying this year she gets an early breakfast of a smaller amount as you can only feed a maximum of 500g per mealtime. The added bonus to this is that from this routine, most of our lambs are born just before breakfast or at tea time, not in the middle of the night. I never feed more that 500g in any meal.

Each day i feed breakfast and tea, weighing the individual needs into each sheeps bucket.

This is wall plan I make each year, which learns from the last and must be flexible, taking into account the way the ewe responds to her pregnancy, you'll see a careful increase if the ewe is carrying twins or indeed the top ewe Gracie who was carrying triplets and she needed more nutrition. Notice the last colomn the due v actual lambing date and time.

Finally, I continue to feed the ewes whilst they are nursing. The following week, they get the reduced ration of 500g delivered to their lambing pen, then they’ll still get a 150g portion in the communal trough when they get out until the Spring grass is good, and even then, I’ll boost depending on the weather and grass quality I’ll tailor it off.

A side note: the ewes drink GALLONS of water the weeks leading up to and whilst feeding during lambing; they need either automated feeders or twice/three times a day to fill up hanging buckets - 1 per sheep. These also need checking for poop twice a day (yep this is a common issue with minature sheep the eater troughs must be low but can mean it gets dirty and they won't drink any water contaminated). I use a wet battery powered hoover - easy to carry into the pens and it sucks the water and the back wash debris that comes from eating ewe nuts or licking the sticky mineral bucket.

This ration and system works for us - it may be a useful starting point for your flock - it will need tweaking to your flock condition, your area and food concentrate choice!

	6 weeks to go	5 weeks to go	4 weeks to go	3 weeks to go	2 weeks to go	1 week to go	Nursing
Singles	0g	1 x 50g	2 x 50g	2 x 100	2 x 200g	2 x 250g	400g =2 x 200g
Twins	1 x 100g	200g = 1 x 200g	450 =2 x 225g	650g = 2 x 275g	800g =2 x 350	900g = 2 x 450g	500g = 2 x 250g
Triplets 8 weeks - 250g 7 weeks - 400g	600g =2 x 300g	700g = 2 x 350g	800g = 2 x 400g	900g = 2 x 450g	1000g = 2 x 500g	1 100 = 1 x 100g + 2 x 500g	500g = 2 x 250g

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