This is copied from the backyard herds forum, where I just posted it - posting it here because that forum doesn't seem very active, and I'm a little bit anxious. Hopefully someone here is knowledgeable about this kind of stuff.
I have mostly male sheep: two wethers, one ram, and a ewe. They all eat grain, just a little bit in their feed every day and then as treats, but the grain is balanced in terms of calcium and phosphorus. It also has ammonium chloride, but I make sure they get a little extra calcium just in case, so they also get a moderate-small amount of alfalfa pellets in their breakfast. The rest made up of lespedeza pellets, and a little bit of orchard grass pellets. They also have free choice kelp, which they like, and they eat timothy hay/grass mix as their main source of food, so this all seems balanced to me.
The thing is, I just ordered some scratch and peck sheep feed. You can't buy it from their website, so I got it off Chewy. But for some reason, the guaranteed analysis of the feed I got from Chewy - identical in every other way to the one shown by scratch and peck - is totally different. The scratch and peck website shows a min of 1.35% calcium and a maximum of 1.5%, with a minimum of 0.56% phosphorus. Roughly 2:1 ratio, so I think, no problem. The directions even say you can feed it to rams. But the feed that just arrived shows a min of 0.67% calcium and a max of 0.77%, while the phosphorus content is 0.5%.
I am extremely frustrated with this because I've been mislead, and I have mostly male sheep. I haven't been able to reach the company to ask what the f- is up with the different content- it's not just calcium/phosphorus, but a number of other things that are different on the label. With the other supplements I give my sheep that are high in calcium, does this sound like it might be okay in small quantities? Maybe I can add calcium to it in some form, or feed them more alfalfa along with it? I'm just wondering if anyone has any suggestions/thoughts about this because I'm hesitant to use it unless I know it will be totally safe. I have an ammonium chloride supplement that I've never used but have on hand just in case as well.
By the way- not sure if it changes the mineral/nutrient content at all (not sure why it would) but my plan was to ferment the sheep feed.
I have mostly male sheep: two wethers, one ram, and a ewe. They all eat grain, just a little bit in their feed every day and then as treats, but the grain is balanced in terms of calcium and phosphorus. It also has ammonium chloride, but I make sure they get a little extra calcium just in case, so they also get a moderate-small amount of alfalfa pellets in their breakfast. The rest made up of lespedeza pellets, and a little bit of orchard grass pellets. They also have free choice kelp, which they like, and they eat timothy hay/grass mix as their main source of food, so this all seems balanced to me.
The thing is, I just ordered some scratch and peck sheep feed. You can't buy it from their website, so I got it off Chewy. But for some reason, the guaranteed analysis of the feed I got from Chewy - identical in every other way to the one shown by scratch and peck - is totally different. The scratch and peck website shows a min of 1.35% calcium and a maximum of 1.5%, with a minimum of 0.56% phosphorus. Roughly 2:1 ratio, so I think, no problem. The directions even say you can feed it to rams. But the feed that just arrived shows a min of 0.67% calcium and a max of 0.77%, while the phosphorus content is 0.5%.
I am extremely frustrated with this because I've been mislead, and I have mostly male sheep. I haven't been able to reach the company to ask what the f- is up with the different content- it's not just calcium/phosphorus, but a number of other things that are different on the label. With the other supplements I give my sheep that are high in calcium, does this sound like it might be okay in small quantities? Maybe I can add calcium to it in some form, or feed them more alfalfa along with it? I'm just wondering if anyone has any suggestions/thoughts about this because I'm hesitant to use it unless I know it will be totally safe. I have an ammonium chloride supplement that I've never used but have on hand just in case as well.
By the way- not sure if it changes the mineral/nutrient content at all (not sure why it would) but my plan was to ferment the sheep feed.
