Feeding sheep before they give birth is vitaly important, getting it wrong can cause all sorts of problems for the sheep and for the farmer. Feed them too much and the lambs are too big and the mother has problems giving birth, don't feed them enough and the lambs are small and may die if they don't have enough strength to survive colds nights. The mother may not be able to give enough milk if she hasn't had enough food at birth.

 

So what is it like on a farm at feeding time? 

 

 

Some of the calcualtions a farmer has to make before lambing, see if you can help out?

 

1) If the farm has 1000 sheep, how much food will be required if each sheep requires 1.25kg of food per day of the lambing period of 6 weeks?

 

2) Is there enough room in the barn for all the sheep? If each sheep requires 0.75sqm, how much room will all the sheep need when they are in the shed together?

 

3) To feed the sheep their second course of silage, how many bales will be required if each sheep eats 0.5 kg of silage per day and a bale weighs 500kg?

 

4) To feed the sheep at the troughs each sheep requires 50cm of space. If each trough is 3meters long how many troughs will be needed to feed a group of 150 sheep at a time if the sheep can use both sides of the trough at the same time, as in the video clip.

 

5) The sheep in the video clip are kept inside 6 weeks prior to lambing, they have their lambs in the shed then go outside. Is this a good idea or should the sheep be left outside all the time? Discuss the reasons for keeping them inside compared to them being outside.