Lamb finishing at the turn of the year is admittedly always a challenge – achieving a balance between feeding concentrate to achieve a respectable finish while avoiding losses and ensuring there’s profit to be made.
“We are all aware how easy it is to end up with some deaths due to lambs gorging on feed and there are certain situations in which the risk of this will be higher, for example, during transition to a different environment – housing, change of field and / or grazing crop as well as the sudden change in feed type with the introduction of concentrate itself,” says Dugdale Nutrition veterinary technical manager, Dr Debby Brown.
“Over-eating concentrate leads to a radical shift in the rumen environment resulting in acidosis – sickness, bloat, damage to the gastrointestinal tract and sometimes, to death.”
When introducing concentrate she advises introducing the following management protocols to minimise the acidosis risk.
Clean, fresh, readily available water should be accessible at all times in all systems. |
“To further minimise the risk of acidosis, incorporating alkasystems technology into feed improves how efficiently the nutrients are used. The alkalinity of the compound feed combats any acidity in the rumen and supports improved feed efficiency,” she explains. “In turn growth rates are increased, finishing times reduced together with less losses from feeding issues. The alka-based concentrate incorporates 10-15% of a concentrated version of Home n’ Dry treated cereal which increases the pH of the overall concentrate.”
For more information about Alkanuts, please contact one of our technical specialists listed below, or call the Alka-line on +44(0)1200 613118.
Rob Cockroft
Great Britain Sales & Technical
t. 07748 651906
Rob Smith
Great Britain Sales & Technical
t. 07930 943073
Paul Sayle
International Sales & Technical
t. 07779 698075