Creep Feeding Principles for Lambs and Goat Kids

- All right, so starting with the creep feeding principles, the first thing I need to do is make sure that you're aware that I am not a veterinarian, that the presentation is for informational educational purposes, and that if you have questions regarding veterinary medical advice, we ask that you seek that advice from your licensed doctor of veterinary medicine that you use for your own farm.

So for this evening, in talking about creep feeding principles, I have several items that I'd like to go over.

Of course, we'll start with the benefits of creep feeding and why you may want to consider doing that.

It's not for everyone, but I'm assuming if you're on the webinar this evening that you have an interest in doing some creep feeding with your own lambs or goats, and we'll talk about some creep feeding tips, some things that you need to keep in mind.

We'll go over a few creep diets that are offered from Dr. Morrical, who is a retired professor from Iowa.

We'll look at some creep feeder designs, and I have some photos to show you some different creep panels.

And then we'll wind up the evening talking a little bit about creep grazing.

If we look at the benefits of creep feeding, usually we're talking about animals that are being produced for a milk fed market, so for our ethnic holidays, and we want to be able to put on as much weight as possible for those lambs and kids, making sure that we're getting some faster growth.

So with creep feeding, we can expect that we may see a 10 to 20% heavier weaning weight.

So for instance, if we're looking at a 50 pound lamb at $4 a pound, that lamb's worth $200.

If we have a 20% increase in weaning weight, which gives us an additional 10 pounds, you know, say we've got a 60 pound lamb that brings 3.75 a pound, now we're at $225.

So for the minimal amount that we're putting into creep feeding costs, you know, may see an additional $25 in this example.

So if we're looking at an extra 10 pounds in weight, we may need approximately 30 pounds of feed.

If your feed costs you $400 a ton, that comes out to about 20 cents a pound for $6 for an additional 10 pounds in weaning weight.

So you're spending $6 to get an additional 25, and that's just an example of how this can work out for your operation.

We are looking at increased feed efficiency.

So as I made that example calculation, I used three pounds of feed to get a pound of weight gain.

So these young animals are very efficient as those animals grow and are older, that feed efficiency drops.

If we're looking at finishing lambs and kids, we may see closer to a five or maybe even a six pound amount of feed needed for a one pound weight gain.

Creep feeding works very well for twins and triplets, and it provides supplemental feed for them in addition to the milk that they're consuming from their mother.

So, you know, we know from, you know, just from fact that twins and triplets, we expect them to weigh less.

They have less milk being produced per animal.

So even though the female, you know, she's producing more milk, if we look at the amount of milk consumed by each of the lambs or kids, the twins will be consuming less each than a single in general, that's not always true.

We have some females that are very good at milk production and very good achievers.

Another benefit of creep feeding is that these lambs and kids get adjusted over to solid feeds and causes less stressful weaning.

So we can expect less weight loss, lower weight loss at weaning because of being adjusted to those dry feed diets.

And then another benefit is that because these creep feed diets tend to be higher in protein, this also helps them to better handle internal parasites.

And that can be a positive benefit, both from grain creep feeding and pasture creep feeding pasture or creep grazing, I wanna say.

If we look at the results of a research study conducted at Cornell University in 2005, we compare the blue bar of goat kids that were not creep fed versus goat kids that were creep fed on those red bars.

And you can see that we've got anywhere from, you know, maybe a 10th to a quarter of a pound per day increase in our average daily gain.

Some of our creep feeding tips, if you watch your lambs and kids, it's not very long until they are starting to nibble at their mother's feed.

And we can start these animals on creep feed as early as one to two weeks of age.

They're not going to consume very much.

They may nibble at it a little bit, but it does get them started.

And, you know, again, it gets them started on dry feed earlier, which can lead to a lower stress weaning and it also stimulates rumen development.

And that has some very important aspects as we're thinking about these lambs and kids and their growth.

If we look at our, actually, let me go back here a moment.

Okay, so as we're talking about our rumen development, we have some microbial colonization.

So the microbes that are in our rumen begin to develop earlier.

We can also see longer rumen papillae, and that's important as far as our nutrient absorption.

And so again, this can be very important for that developing animal and their future growth, particularly at that weaning time.

So as we look at our rumen development, they break it into some different features.

They have an anatomic development, which is that rumen mass.

So it's important is that animal grows, that they have a well-developed rumen so that they can utilize larger quantities of forages.

And that rumen mass with that papillae growth, you know, really helps to support that animal and prepare them for their future without drinking milk, you know, consuming milk from their mother.

There's a functional achievement, so it helps with fermentation capacity and enzyme activity.

So again, these are helping that animal to digest those fibrous feeds.

And then that microbial colonization, so anywhere from the bacteria, the fungi, methanogenic archaea and protozoa.

So basically this methanogenic archaea convert carbon compounds to methane for growth.

And then, you know, we hope to see that this rumen is fully functional by 10 to 12 weeks of age, so that runs to 70 to 84 days of age.

So again, we're getting close to those timeframes when we're weaning and if we can move that rumen development to start earlier and become fully functional at an earlier age, again, that will help with the growth of our young lambs and kids.

So a couple creep feeding tips.

So I think it's extremely important to have these lambs and kids vaccinated with C, D and T.

So the C and D are two types of clostridium perfringens, and those are our most common types that we see associated with overeating disease.

And then the T stands for tetanus.

So anytime we're docking tails, if you're castrating, if you're disbudding kids, anytime you're opening up a wound, then we wanna make sure that those animals are vaccinated with tetanus.

Now, two things to keep in mind.

If you are vaccinating the mothers, the ewes and the does approximately four to six weeks before they're going to lamb or kid, then we can wait until five to six weeks of age to vaccinate with C, D and T.

And this is because that mother is able to pass some of this protection on to their young and it will last up to about five to six weeks of age.

If the mother has not been vaccinated in late gestation, then we wanna wait until those lambs or kids are about two weeks of age.

And the reason we don't vaccinate them right away when they're, right after they're born, it's because their immune system is not fully developed.

So if we wait until they are two weeks old, then their immune system is better able to process that vaccine.

Now, the importance of this C, D and T is to prevent overeating disease, which leads to the next thing.

Never ever let the feeder get empty.

What happens is those lambs and kids will get hungry and then they move into a feeder that is suddenly full and they gorge themselves.

And then we have that clostridium perfringens produces toxins in high enough levels that we have serious consequences and often death from our animals.

So I can't stress enough the importance of never letting that feeder, particularly with grain get empty.

Another consideration is we need to minimize contamination.

We need to keep the lambs and the kids out of the feeder.

I realize it's a very difficult task with those kids because they love to get in and jump and playing around in the feeder, but you know, consider some designs of your feeders to be able to keep those young animals out of that feeder.

The reason for that is our coccidiosis and possible other internal parasites.

I know here at home, we had an instance many years ago where lambs were able to get up on a feed alley and we must have had 150, 200 lambs that year.

And when I go to feed, it seemed like a hundred, 150 of them were, you know, running up and down the feed alley.

So as you can imagine, the contamination caused some coccidiosis issues.

So, you know, the next step was to make changes to those feeders so that those lambs could not get into that.

It's one of those deals where you learn the hard way.

So another thing to consider is we wanna look at our creep feeder area location.

So it needs to be easy access to the lambs or kids.

So if you've got a larger size barn or pen area, you wanna make sure that it's somewhere that those kids are going to be close to their mothers.

You know, if you set the creep feeder down on one end of the barn and the ewes have their feeders or their does have their feeders on the other end, then we're going to have less likelihood that those lambs and kids are going to stay in that creep feeder and utilize it as much as possible.

When they're getting, you know, first getting started is good idea to put a light into that feeder.

So particularly, you know, in the evenings and at night, that'll attract those lambs and kids to go in and continue to nibble and consume those feeds that we provide in there.

It's important to keep our creep area away from drafts.

You know, if it's a cold area, then you know, they have that cold air blowing over top of them.

They're not going to be in there.

If you look at this photo of this creep area, we have this nice pile of lambs.

They're enjoying this delightful sunshine.

They're nice and warm, toasty, you can see they're very comfortable.

One of the things that we can, you know, also consider with that, I mentioned about keeping it away from drafts.

So if this is an open sided building, you wanna make sure that the prevailing winds are not likely to be blowing across that creep feed area.

And it makes a nice place for those lambs and kids just to get away from the adults.

You know, if they want to be eating feed, they're not going to be pushed around, you know, bullied out of a feeder if they were out in the main area where the adults are at.

It's important to keep it well bedded.

It needs to be clean and dry.

And again, that encourages those lambs and kids to move into that creep feeder.

And, you know, clean and dry also helps to prevent issues with disease.

When we're considering our creep feeding diets, we don't need to have anything that is super complicated.

Something very simple is fine to use.

The key is that it needs to be highly palatable.

And so it needs to be kind of like, think of it as being candy for these lambs and kids.

Something that they want to eat, something they enjoy eating, that they'll readily consume.

If we have this creep feeding grain finely ground, then they're more likely to consume that.

If you've ever used textured feeds, you'll notice that young lambs and kids will pick out what they like and they'll leave the harder to chew type feeds behind.

So if I've got some larger pieces of corn, you know, those will be left behind and they're not going to consume them, especially during those first four to six weeks of life.

Once they're older, coarser feeds or even pellets will work very well.

But any, regardless of what the feed is, it must be kept fresh and dry.

And you know, quite often we'll replenish it daily or make sure that the lambs and kids have enough to consume for a day, but make sure that we provide enough that we don't run out of feed.

Quite often, if I had leftovers, you know, whether it's, you know, larger pieces or if it's some fines as the those fine particles that they don't want to consume, I would clean the feeders out and give that to the mamas.

Again, you need to spread that out well so that the mothers aren't all of a sudden consuming a large portion of that creep feed.

If this feed is soiled, so if you've got lambs and kids that have been climbing into the feeder and they've got their dirty feet in there and there's manure in it, that feed gets thrown out, does not get fed to the mothers.

So as lambs and kids get older, they will increase that dry feed consumption.

Typically milk production is going to peak around a month of age for those lambs and kids, and then the milk production begins to decrease.

So we'll gradually start to see those lambs and kids consume larger quantities of a creep feed, you know, particularly after that four to six week old timeframe.

So we can gradually start to switch over to a coarser feed or to pellets.

And I've, you know, capitalized the gradually on the slide because as you're making any transition, you want to make sure you're doing it slowly.

And so if you're going to switch a feed maybe for the first day, you'll have a quarter of the new feed mixed in with the old feed.

Do that for a few days, then move to half new feed, half old feed, for several days and then for another several days you can have three quarters of the new feed, a quarter of the old feed, and then after that several days you'll be able to switch them over to completely to the new feed.

I do recommend including a coccidiostat because our lambs and kids can be very susceptible to coccidiosis.

And one thing about coccidia is it tends to be an opportunistic parasite.

I always say it doesn't fight fair, so it waits for times when the lambs and kids are stressed.

So like today here in Pennsylvania, we had a snowstorm blow through.

So you know, we had really nice weather last week, nice and warm up in the fifties, even up as high into the low sixties.

You know, now today we've dropped down into forties and it's been very wet and the temperatures are dropping.

So this is a stressful situation for them and that can cause additional problems with coccidia.

And the other thing to consider is our adults, the ewes and the does will have coccidia, you know, with them that they're passing onto our young animals.

And the older, the adult females are able to withstand some of those coccidia infestations infections.

But the smaller lambs and kids are much more susceptible.

So a good idea is to include a coccidiostat in that creep feed.

We can use Bovatec or Deccox for the lambs and then Rumensin or Deccox for the goats.

And one caution about these is the lamb, the, you know, lambs or kids must be listed on the labels.

So it'll say, you know, for sheep or for goats, by law we may not feed a product to livestock that's not listed on the label.

So it is illegal to feed Bovatec to goats.

It's illegal to feed Rumensin to lambs.

And your veterinarian cannot prescribe this off label as they would say an antibiotic.

By law you can only feed as it's listed on the label.

Now I mentioned before that we need that creep feed to be highly palatable.

Our whole goal is, excuse me, to stimulate intake.

So we want these lambs and kids starting early and getting used to consuming this feed, you know, with the whole goal of increasing their average daily gain.

Typical feeds that we might find in our creep feeds include soybean meal, ground corn, and then in addition to grain feeding, something like alfalfa hay, which leaves that are very palatable are excellent to include in that creep feed area.

Some people will actually start their lambs and kids with straight soybean meal.

So they may, in those first week or two, they may, you know, feed it straight or they may topdress it on the creep feed.

However, you do not want to do this for a long period of time because you'll tend to start to see some diarrhea if they're consuming too much quantity of that.

So maybe for the, you know, if you're like putting this creep feed out at one to two weeks of age for those oldest lambs and kids, sprinkle the top of it with soybean meal to encourage them to get started.

A very simple creep feed mixture might include 80 to 85% ground corn and then 15 to 20% soybean meal.

And that's in your feed mixture.

And then provide a free choice alfalfa hay along with that creep feed.

If we look at our nutrient content of our creep feeds, recommendations would be that lambs under 50 pounds would consume a creep feed grain mix at 18 to 20% protein, lambs over 50 pounds, that could be dropped back, remember dropped back or changed gradually to 14 to 16%.

Kids, because they're growing slower than lambs, you may want to keep them at the 16 to 18% throughout the creep feeding period.

You should always use natural ingredients.

Do not use urea.

It's too likely that those young lambs or kids may encounter problems with urea toxicity.

And we, you know, to avoid that, just don't put any of the urea in the feeds.

If you have problems with urinary calculi, some people will include ammonium chloride.

This ammonium chloride actually acidifies the urine.

So when urinary calculi develops, it's kind of a, the calculi are little sandy particles that will block the urethra of males.

So if we're acidifying the urine, it helps to prevent the formulation of that calculi.

The other thing to consider to avoid issues with urinary calculi is making sure that you're balancing a calcium to phosphorus ratio.

So corn and other grains tend to be high in phosphorus.

While our legumes, such as the alfalfa, you know, some clovers, bird's-foot trefoil, they are high in calcium.

So providing that alfalfa in the creep feed area can be beneficial to make sure that you're balancing that calcium to phosphorus ratio.

Dr. Dan Morrical, who I mentioned before as being retired from Iowa State University, he had put together a fact sheet on creep feeding diets and he suggested some different protein levels for lamb rations based on their daily gain and weight.

So if we look at these very young lambs, a 40 pound lamb consuming 2.4 pounds of dry matter intake.

So if we're looking at, you know, daily gains of a half a pound, then we're looking at a 15.9% protein level.

And you know, as we move up to faster rates of gain, 0.8 pounds of gain per day, we're looking at 20.4% protein.

And as the animals get older, they tend to need less of a concentration of protein in their diet.

So as you see as the lamb weight increases, then our daily gains or our protein percentages for our daily gains decrease also.

So at gaining a half a pound for a 40 pound lamb, we're looking at a 15.9% protein versus a 115 pound lamb requiring 10.8% protein.

Dr. Morrical has also formulated some example creep feeds.

So I have three of them here.

You'll notice that they all have a high base of corn and then creep feed two also adds some oats.

Oats tends to be a pretty palatable grain option.

It's higher in protein than corn, but the energy is lower.

So if we're looking at this first creep feed, we're looking at 1,470 pounds of corn, 370 pounds of soybean meal, we add the molasses.

So again, molasses can be, you know, a stimulant to help those lambs and kids get started.

They like the taste of it.

It also helps to cut the dust so that they're, and it helps it also a little bit to prevent some sorting.

The limestone is added as a calcium source, which helps to prevent the urinary calculi.

And then we can add things like ammonium sulfate, trace minerals, selenium, and then our vitamins and the coccidiostat.

So we have different levels for each of these creep feeds.

If we take a look at the analysis of these creep feeds, so our first creep feed comes in at 16.7% crude protein, the second one at 18.4, and then the third one at 21.

And then we list the total digestible nutrients.

So this is a measure of the energy in the feeds.

So these are all three very high energy feeds ranging between 81 and 83.4% protein.

And then if you look at the calcium, compare that to the phosphorus that we have at least twice as much calcium as phosphorus in that grain rack, grain mix.

And in red I noted that these are estimates only.

To really know exactly what is in your creep feed, you have to run a feed analysis so that you can balance that accurately.

And that's if you are mixing your own rations.

If you're not mixing your own rations, there are a wide variety of commercial rations that are available and they're professionally balanced to meet the nutrient needs of your animals.

You know, so any of those, as long as it's a good quality mix, a good company that is formulating them, any of those would work well.

One of the things that can be an issue with some of our rations is that the lambs and the kids can be like us going into a buffet, they're going to sort out and pick what they like best.

So in order to get them to stop looking at it as a buffet and eating everything that we put in front of them, we can look at doing a fine grind and then, you know, we bind it with the molasses so that they're less likely to do any sorting.

A lot of the goat commercial creep feeds, you'll see them, you know, once the kids get older will have them pelleted.

So we want a quarter inch pellet, so it's a very small pellet so that they're able to get those chewed up.

If you're mixing your own rations and corn is, you know, very expensive or you're having issues locating corn, you can make some substitutes.

So you can substitute sorghum pound for pound with the corn and the ration.

With wheat or barley, you would make half wheat or barley and then half corn.

You don't want to get too high a level of those feeds in the ration.

If you're substituting oats for the corn, you can do it at one-to-one, but you need to realize that if you want to match the same energy level, you'll need one and a quarter times as much oats to replace that energy that is supplied by the corn.

But basically use whatever works for your operation.

You know, I tell folks to take advantage of resources that are found locally.

So whether that's mixing your own creep feed diets and using locally sourced grains or you know, going to a feed mill and purchasing those commercially produced feeds.

I'm going to switch over to looking at creep feeder design 'cause it's very important that we design it so that our lambs and kids can get in, but our ewes and does cannot.

So our width between our creep bars for our lambs, we're looking at six to nine inches and then our kids at five to seven inches.

So this photo, we've got a picture of this kid and a nicely bedded, you know, warm, clean, dry area, has a light shining on it, has a, you know, a light source and we're looking through those creep bars in that creep feeder.

And then depending on the design of our creep panel, we may be able to adjust the width and height of those panels as our lambs and kids grow.

The height of the creek opening can be very important.

So for lambs, 36 inches high is fine.

We often don't have issues with the ewes going into the creep feeder unless the widths between the creek bars is too wide.

For our kids, we're looking at a pretty small opening, we're looking at five to seven inches wide by 12 inches high.

It is amazing to me how an adult doe can squeeze into a creep feeder.

So you need to pay attention to those size openings to make sure that the mamas aren't getting into the creep feeder.

And then for our panel height, we're looking at usually 40 to 45 inches, you know, high enough that the ewes and the does are not going to jump over it.

So looking at creep feeder design and we'll put, excuse me, Chelsea is going to put these links into the chat.

So this first one is a sheep housing design criteria and some idea plans.

So it lists information not only for creep feeders but also for general space requirements, feeder sizes for sheep or in that one.

We have a second link that will be in the chat if you're interested.

North Dakota State University has building plans.

So the idea plans and the building plans in both of them would be for things like building your own feeders, building your own creep feed panels, that type of information.

And you know, just picking out a little bit of information that's on some of that, on that sheep housing design criteria.

This would be true for goats also, we want about two inches of feeder space per lamb or kid.

So as you look at that little feeder, which is right here, the length of that feeder should be based on two inches per lamb or kid that we're expecting to have access to that creep feeder.

We also want to plan on the size of the creep area at one and a half to two square feet per lamb or kid.

Now before I move on to the next slide, just wanna make a couple comments about the photo.

So, you know, this is a nice little simple feeder that's easy to build at home.

The challenge with this feeder is that the lambs and kids are able to get into that feed or walk down it, you know, have their feet in it making a mess.

And so it's not ideal.

The creep panel I really like though, you know, again, it's wooden and then we have these poles in here.

On each end of those poles there are holes drilled.

So we have a hole in top and we drop a bolt down into this creek panel pole and it's able to turn, so this is what we call a roller bar.

So as the lambs or kids would move in and out of this creep feeder, those roll, the bars will roll to make it easier for them to get in and out, particularly as they get older.

So now we're going to look at some different options.

So I took some photos of some different creep panels and things within creep feeders, just to give you an idea of what some folks are using.

So here's one that's very simple, works great for very young lambs or goat kids.

So it's a pallet, you know, they took some of the boards off of it, you know, in between and then the lambs or kids can walk through.

You can put a board across the middle for the lambs, you know, to prevent ewes from walking in.

If you would use this for goat kids, I'd probably put another bar up across the top here just to make sure those does are not able to get access into that creep feeder.

Now the challenge with this is that you cannot adjust it and I don't like the fact that, you know, the edges of the boards, as those lambs would continue to grow if you kept using this, we're going to see them start to rub off some areas of (indistinct)

particularly behind their shoulders and onto the start of their rib cage.

So this is not ideal in my opinion, but it works great for the younger lambs, younger kids.

Here's a commercial made creep feeder panel.

So again, we've got holes drilled across the top and the bottom.

You can see the holes here on the bottom.

So you can move these bars to adjust for sizes.

So you can see they're very close together on this one edge and we have wider areas here.

And then the producer has just simply dropped these PVC pipes over it so that they'll serve as rollers for the kid, the lambs to get in and out.

And then one thing I would comment on is you notice that, you know, we have the bars that are across the front of it here.

And so this panel is not actually set up yet, but you would want these bars on the side facing the adults facing where the ewes and the does are at.

So as they're pushing on it, you know, it tends to be a little more stable, a little more sturdy from that direction.

Here's another one that's very similar.

As you can see the, you know, the bars, we're able to adjust those widths.

We're able to adjust the height of this bar also, so we can move it up and down.

And again, the one end is out, you know, where the ewes are pushing into these bars instead of, you know, an area where they can push in and bend that bar.

There are tabs on the end here so you can connect to other panels.

One thing I might point out on the pin that has dropped in here, it's, this is a lighter weight pin and you can notice it's already bent in this one area.

So you wanna make sure that the pins in your, that you're using to pin panels together are heavy enough to withstand the does or the ewes pushing on it.

Here's a neat creep feeder.

It does not have adjustable bars, but it's certainly a very large area.

You notice it's located in the middle of the barn.

So very easy access for lambs or goats to get in.

The feeder, so it's designed so that the lambs or kids are not going to be getting in and walking around so much in that feeder.

They may, you know, they're gonna get their head in here, but because these are flush with each other, they're not likely to be walking in and dirtying up the feed as badly as some other feeders.

If you notice we have these streamers set up here.

So this feeder is open on top and if you leave it open like that, then the birds are going to show up and then they start making a mess 'cause they do their business in there.

So these streamers help to keep those birds from leaving their mess behind.

So this producer, they've used two panels because they have a large number of lambs.

And you'll notice these are cattle panels, so they're very tall, so nobody's going to be jumping over into the creep feeder.

And you'll notice this is a pin.

Here's some hinges.

So, you know, this is kind of interesting that you're able to use this as a gate to get in and out of that creep feeder, which would work great especially so you don't have to be climbing up over these tall panels to get into that creep feeder to replenish feed.

This feeder is obviously hand-built.

It's in a very large operation, you know, they just use the two by fours and allow access for the lambs or, you know, it would work just as well for kids to go in and out.

And I have, in another slide, I'll show a little closer up photo of how they've designed this feeder.

This feeder has been repurposed from a hog barn.

So it's a nursery feeder and then the producer build a stand to hang this feeder on.

So, you know, feeds down from the top.

Sometimes the lambs do, and our kids could stand in here.

If you fill it clear up to the top so that it's heaping, then they tend to stand in here and they wanted to eat out of the top.

So, you know, just something to consider, you know, just a drawback from that.

But it works very well, feeds down, you know, into this little trough.

And one thing also I might mention is that you need to make sure that the feed is flowing.

Sometimes it can get hung up if it has a lot of molasses in it.

Here's another repurposed feeder.

So some of you may remember Vigortone.

And that is a mineral company.

So this is actually a mineral feeder, but again, you're able to feed it or fill the feeder from the top and it feeds down into these small areas where the lambs or kids can eat out of.

And it's kind of nice 'cause it just hangs over the gate.

So you can put it in and out of a pen as needed.

You know, here's another feeder, it's sitting on the ground and it's attached to the panels.

And you remember before I said about two inches of feeder space per lamb.

So this feeder would be too small to provide enough feed for all these lambs.

So you know, in this instance you would need more feeders.

You notice the hay feeder, again, one that the producer has built themselves and has hung on the gates for these lambs to consume forage.

This is a closer up photo of that creep feeder from before.

So we've got a 55 gallon barrel and they've cut openings in the bottom, so you fill from the top and then the feed flows down through these openings at the bottom and then it's set on a base and there's a lip right here so that the feed doesn't spill out into the pen.

Here's one that's very similar.

This was originally used as a feeder in a duck barn and you know, the producer would fill from the top and then the feed comes out the bottom.

So what he did is he moved this onto a different platform to use with some lambs that he was feeding.

This is one of the self feeders, an advantage feeder.

So this can be used for lambs, for creep feeding on up to adults.

So you can adjust these spaces in here.

It's what they call a lick feeder.

So the animals will lick to eat the grain.

And when, basically, when their tongue gets tired, then they stop eating.

So based on how wide these openings are, it controls the flow and therefore you can control how much those animals are eating.

Here's another just little hay feeder that's in a creep feeder.

So these are very young lambs that are consuming this hay.

And you notice this is primarily a grass hay.

And you know, I actually talked to this producer today and suggested to her that she may want to go find a mixed grass hay or something that's heavier with alfalfa so that she can make sure she balances out that calcium to phosphorus ratio.

And then if you got some bottle lambs or bottle kids, if you get them trained to a bucket, you can hang that bucket in the creep feeder and you know, you're filling the bucket, keeping it with cool milk.

It'll have cold milk in there.

You'll notice the lid is on top to keep out dirt, bird poop, whatever, you know, might get there.

You'll notice the bucket is not completely sealed and that's because it is difficult to take that lid off so the lid is on enough so that it keeps the dirt out, but it's easy to get into.

And the last point of tonight was to talk a little bit about creep grazing.

And the goal with this is to allow our lambs or kids to graze the next pasture area.

And so the next pasture area should be higher quality.

So it's got all the, you know, the legumes and grasses that have not been grazed over by the ewes or the does.

One easy thing to do is if you've got metal gates, you can attach that to our creep gate.

So the main flock or herd is on this side and then the lambs or kids can pass through the creep gate and go out into the next pasture to eat the higher quality feeds that are there.

Basically we're giving the first choice of that high quality pasture.

So things like, you know, the legumes, they may run 18 to 20% protein and you know, provide an excellent source of a creep feed for our lambs or kids.

And I did put a note here that these creep openings on this gate panel are at about nine inches.

The other interesting thing on creep grazing, particularly if you have not rotated through a pasture system yet in the season.

So if this is 2024 and we're just starting turning out young lambs or young kids, they're going out into this new pasture and there should be a lower parasite load on that pasture.

And then the other benefit is that higher protein levels, so consuming those high protein legumes that can help suppress the lifecycle of those internal parasites.

There's a study in Europe, it's a euro sheep research project and they noted some additional weight gains of as much as two kilogram heavier at weaning, which equates to about 4.4 pounds per lamb.

But basically we can figure that we can get some similar weight gains on creep grazing that we will for grain creep feeding.

And that's provided that you have a lush high quality pasture that you're allowing those lambs or kids to creep into.

So overall creep feeding works great for, you know, those milk fed, weaning age lambs or kids that are being marketed, you know, at their weaning age.

It's ideal for multiple births.

It helps to supplement the milk consumption in order to add weight and body condition.

So I always tell folks who are planning to market for the any ethnic holidays, you know, those folks are looking for these like, I call them fat little butterballs.

So we want, you know, some additional weight and then we want that body condition that makes them more acceptable to our buyers.

It improves their ability to withstand internal parasites.

And that higher protein applies not only to our lamb and kids, but also applies to our ewes and does.

And if you would want to supplement them with higher protein and then because we're getting these lambs and kids adjusted over to solid feeds earlier, once they are weaned, it reduces their weaning stress and they're less likely to lose as much weight as their counterparts that are not creep fed.

Couple of things I wanted to share with you is that I typically send out follow up evaluations in the fall and this helps us to document how you're able to use information we present, whether it's webinars or in face-to-face programs.

But each of you will receive an invitation this fall to participate in a follow-up evaluation and we would sure appreciate if you'd take a few minutes.

It usually only takes five, 10 minutes to complete it.

If you're interested in learning more or receiving notifications about upcoming programs, if you go to extension.psu.edu/email-preferences or you could do extension.psu.edu/aboutme and that gives you some opportunity to tell us what you want to learn about, how you want to receive information.

We do have a lot of resources online at extension.psu.edu.

I've written quite a few articles on sheep and goat production that you can find there.

We have online courses for sheep and grazing and then I've also got a meat goat home study course and there's also a dairy goat course.

Okay, I am going to put up an evaluation poll.

So if you'd be so kind as to answer these few questions, you'll have to scroll down.

There are four questions there.

Then while you're completing that, I will go ahead and answer some questions in the Q&A.

Okay, so it says if the mother is vaccinated four to six weeks before giving birth, do we need to wait until the kids are five weeks old to vaccinate the kids?

You don't have to, but you have protection for that kid and it's not providing them any additional protection by vaccinating them before five weeks.

But you know, you can certainly vaccinate earlier if you'd prefer.

Okay, do goat kids need copper added to their creep feed?

That's a really good question.

I doubt that they need any copper added, you know, as they're getting older and they start to consume the salt and mineral mix, you know, they should be able to meet their copper requirements that way.

If you are concerned about that, some people will add minerals to a creep feed.

I generally do not have that in my creep feed, but unless you're, you know, you have some molybdenum issues, I don't think you you're going to have any problems there.

Okay, so speaking of ethnic holidays and marketing, do you have a list of the holidays and what type kid or goat they would want?

Yes, so if you go to the extension.psu.edu website and type in on their search, marketing lamb and kid for holidays or maybe it's marketing lamb and goats for holidays and that has a description of each of the holidays, what size kid or goat is preferred and then there's a calendar at the end of that publication that tells you the different dates because those ethnic holidays will vary throughout the year.

They're based on a lunar, a moon calendar as opposed to the calendar that we follow.

Can you stop putting a coccidiostat in the creep feed after 28 days?

I guess you could, but I wouldn't recommend it.

So if you think about those kids, they are really not starting to eat a lot of creep feed until they're about a month old.

So I would recommend leaving that coccidiostat in throughout the whole time that you're creep feeding.

We have to make sure that they consume enough so that they're getting the benefit of the coccidiostat.

Okay, how many openings are needed for access to the creep pen?

Oh, great question.

I have not seen any recommendations for how many openings that you need.

You know, most of 'em are going to have probably anywhere from two to four openings, you know, for the whole group and you know, just so you have enough space for those lambs once they get in the creep feeder that they have access to the feeder.

So what type of pasture legume mixtures do you recommend for creep grazing?

So any pasture I generally recommend, it's at about 30% of the mix as a legume.

So you're gonna choose that legume based on site and soil characteristics.

So if you want alfalfa, you need a deep, well drained soil.

I can't grow alfalfa on my farm so I tend to use bird's-foot trefoil, white clover works very well.

You definitely don't want high levels of red clover.

I have had issues with red clover, you know, causing problems with reproduction.

So you know, ideally, you know, some type of legume that matches your fields, you know, with, you know, alfalfa, bird's-foot and white clover would be my choices.

How large of a range of size or age within a creep group to prevent bullying?

Okay, so if you've got bullying issues, I'm assuming you've got a large group of lambs, so you may want to sort those lambs based on heat cycles.

So, you know, if you get a group of lambs within the first heat cycle, you know, say the first 20 days and you've got 25 to 50 lambs, you can put them into a separate creep.

You know, if I had a hundred ewes that I was lambing out, I would tend to sort them by age.

I don't have a specific recommendation on size, but I wouldn't want to mix lambs that are more than maybe three weeks old within the same group.

You know, if you've got a smaller group of lambs, you know, you'll have less bullying if you have more feeder space.

Okay, will we have access to the webinar later?

Yes, so I have been recording the webinar and within the next few days, next few days to a week, I'll say, you should receive a link to the webinar recording in your email.

Okay, looks like, oops, there's one more question.

When bottle feeding goat kids, should I add some kind of coccidiostat to the milk?

No, I would not add it to the milk.

This is something that would be added by your feed mill and, you know, it's not something that's going to go into the milk.

Okay, great questions tonight, folks.

If we don't have any other questions, I'm gonna go ahead and stop the share and I'm going to stop the recording.