Sheep nutrition plays a vital role in maintaining flock health, productivity, and longevity. Whether you’re raising sheep for meat, milk, or wool, it’s important to first define their purpose and then tailor their diet accordingly. For example, pregnant ewes require higher energy intake than growing lambs, and all sheep benefit from balanced forage and minerals. Proper sheep nutrition not only improves wool quality but also supports strong growth and disease resistance throughout your flock.
Most sheep are kept on pasture or hay, and if it’s high in protein and of good quality, it’s sufficient in terms of nutrition most of the time. In addition to high-quality forage, sheep must also have a professionally balanced mineral available to them.
Managing Copper in Sheep Nutrition
While all livestock require copper, in the wrong quantities, copper can also be toxic. Sheep are the most sensitive to copper toxicity; thus, you must pay special attention to copper in their diet.
The presence or absence of other minerals in a sheep’s diet can affect how copper is metabolized and contribute to or lessen the chance of copper toxicity. Testing hay and pasture where you plan to graze sheep can make a huge difference in survival rate.
Often, hay alone has more copper than sheep will need, so feeding them a mineral or feed supplement balanced for another livestock species could be fatal. Even grazing sheep on pasture where waste from poultry or pigs—which typically require more copper in their diets—can alter copper levels in the sheep diet.
Feeding Ewes and Lambs for Optimal Nutrition
In terms of sheep nutrition, a pregnant ewe needs a high-energy feed, such as grain, before and after lambing. Slowly increase the concentrate she consumes to about 15 percent of her diet (dry matter) before lambing and then 35 percent of her diet (dry matter) after lambing. This will help prepare her body for the stress of lactation and minimize the possibility of health issues such as pregnancy toxemia or metabolic diseases. The exact amount your ewe will need depends on her age, health and the number of lambs she is expected to have.
Lambs will, of course, need colostrum immediately after birth. If a lamb is nursing or bottle-feeding well, creep feed should be offered between 10 and 14 days old. You can purchase professionally balanced creep feeds for a reasonable price; lambs don’t eat much. While creep feeding aids in rumen development, encouraging consumption of nutritious feed can also reduce the stress of weaning.
If your ewe has a properly balanced diet and both the ewe and the lamb are consuming a high-quality forage, finishing weights for meat lambs can be reached more quickly.
If you are finishing out your lambs on pasture or hay, provide a supplement with greater energy and possibly protein. You can determine which supplement to use by knowing the nutrient composition of the forage you feed your lambs.
Sheep Nutrition: Final Thoughts
Meeting your flock’s sheep nutrition needs starts with understanding the quality of the forage, hay, and supplements you provide. Whether you’re grazing, feeding hay, or incorporating energy-dense grains and balanced minerals, tailoring your approach to the life stage and purpose of each sheep is essential. By regularly testing feed sources and adjusting as needed, you can support healthy growth, improve wool quality, and prevent nutritional issues like copper toxicity—ensuring a strong, productive flock year-round.
This story about sheep nutrition was written for Hobby Farms magazine. Click here to subscribe.
