Green fodder
Green fodder is the main feed for sheep. Except for poisonous plants, all kinds of green fodder can be fed to sheep. In particular, leaves and small bamboos such as oak, rhododendron, lespedeza, salt bark, ebony, rose, and mountain leech; oxenia, bermudagrass, horse pond, and revolution grass can be used as sheep feed.
Green fodder is nutritious, with a crude protein content of about 10% based on dry matter, various amino acids and vitamins, a crude fat content of 4-5%, and a crude fiber content of about 20%. Green fodder that is too tender often has high water content and large volume. The sheep are easy to be full, hungry and prone to diarrhea. Therefore, some hay should be added when grazing in early spring. Fresh and tender leguminous grass can also easily cause bloating in sheep, so attention should be paid to the appropriate combination. There are also some green feeds with peculiar smell, such as some grasses from the Asteraceae and Polygonaceae families, which sheep do not like to eat; sheep also do not like to eat leaves with astringent taste.
In addition to natural grass and leaf resources, farmers can plant pastures to raise sheep, such as ryegrass, Mexican corn, milkvetch and sweet potato vine, which are green fodder with good nutrition and high yield.
Energy feed
Mainly refers to seed feed and agricultural and sideline products, such as corn, barley, rice and bran (cakes and meals are often classified as protein supplements). This type of feed is small in size and high in digestible nutrients, but its nutrient composition is relatively biased. For example, seeds and fruits have high energy value, but low protein content and poor quality; high phosphorus content, but often insufficient calcium. Therefore, energy feed is generally used as a supplement to roughage in production and is used during the fattening period.
Do not crush the seed feed too finely during processing. It is best to flatten or break it. The diameter is required to be more than 2 mm. For feeds such as barley, soaking them to soften them and then feeding them whole grains can also achieve better results.
Succulent feeds such as sweet potatoes, pumpkins and potatoes are also energy feeds. These feeds have high water content, good palatability, can stimulate the appetite of sheep, and can be used as supplementary feeds, especially for lactating ewes and lambs.
Protein supplements
Protein supplements include beans (soybeans, broad beans), oil cakes and non-protein nitrogen feeds. The protein content of beans is as high as 20-40%, and their nutritional value is high. However, they are expensive and resources are limited, so they are rarely used directly for raising sheep. Commonly used protein supplements are by-products of oil extraction from seeds, such as soybean cake, rapeseed cake, and cottonseed cake.
Raw soybeans and broad beans are difficult to be directly digested and absorbed by sheep, and will hinder the digestion of other nutrients. They should be inactivated at high temperature, that is, soaked and steamed before being fed to sheep.
The nutritional value of soybean cake is very high. It not only has high crude protein content and good quality, but also is rich in lysine, which is the best among cakes. However, due to its high price, most of it is used in pig, poultry and dairy farming, and not much is used in sheep farming. Rapeseed cake and cottonseed cake can be safely absorbed and utilized by sheep and are cheap and high-quality protein supplements. In addition, you can choose tofu residue, MSG residue and other food industry processing by-products to feed sheep, which has better effects.
Roughage
Feeds with high fiber content and low digestible nutrients are called roughage, which mainly include pasture, wild weeds, crop straws and food processing waste. The available and cheap roughage in our province mainly includes straw such as green hay and rice straw. However, these feeds have low nutritional value, sheep feed intake is small, and digestibility is poor. They must be processed to destroy the structure and organization of the straw before their feeding value can be improved and effectively absorbed and utilized by ruminants