While pasture is the primary food for sheep, you may have to resort to other options during hard times, such as winter. Quality hay is an excellent alternative feed for your livestock when you cannot access pasture, but can sheep eat hay, considering they are picky eaters?
Sheep can eat hay primarily from grass but also other plants when grass and other forages are not available. This includes periods of drought or winter when the grass cannot grow.
Find out more information on feeding sheep hay below.
What is Hay?
It is easy to confuse straw with hay, especially if you do not live in a rural area. Hay refers to cut, dried, and stored legumes, grass, or herbaceous plants to be used as animal fodder.
It is given to big grazing livestock such as horses, sheep, goats, and cattle or small domesticated animals like guinea pigs and rabbits.
The main difference between straw and hay is that while straw is a by-product of the grain harvest, hay contains legumes.
In addition, straw is not livestock feed. Different legumes are used to make hay; they include grasses like fescue, alfalfa, oat, clover, and Bermuda.
Before feeding your animals hay, remember that hay comes in different kinds and what is appropriate for some animals may not be suitable for others.
Various farm animals have specific nutritional needs. Therefore, you must organize their diets according to their needs to ensure they receive all the nutrients sheep need to stay healthy.
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Is Hay Good for Sheep?
Hay is an excellent food source for sheep, provided it is high-quality, meaning it is leafier, finer, well-seasoned, and contains the correct humidity levels. The digestibility levels vary in different hay types.
Finer hay has higher digestibility levels, which is why they are best for sheep. These animals certainly enjoy immature grass or leafy alfalfa hay.
Your lambs will enjoy and benefit from hay made using legumes harvested early (when the plant is actively growing) since they have finer stems. On the other hand, mature sheep are good with excellent grass hay.
Hay’s nutritional value is related to the content of the leaf. For instance, grass hay leaves are easier to digest and contain more nutrients when the grass plant is actively growing, but the fiber is more once the plant reaches full growth.
On the other hand, the nutrients in legume plants do not change much while the plants grow, although the stems get more fibrous and coarser.
Alfalfa stems are woody to support the plant. When determining an alfalfa plant’s nutritional value, you must consider the leaf-to-stem ratio.
For this reason, its nutrient values, palatability, and digestibility are the highest during the plant’s early growth stages when it has fewer stems and more leaves.
Generally, a forage plant’s (legume or grass) leaves have about 3 ¼ protein and 2 ¼ energy plus other nutrients. Below is a nutritional comparison of the common hay types.
| Type of Hay | Crude Protein | Crude Fiber | Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN) |
| Alfalfa | 19% | 26% | 61% |
| Meadow Grass | 7% | 33% | 50% |
| Timothy | 8% | 34% | 57% |
| Clover | 15% | 30% | 55% |
| Fescue | 11% | 30% | 52% |
| Orchardgrass | 10% | 34% | 59% |
| Brome | 10% | 35% | 55% |
| Bermuda Grass | 10% | 29% | 53% |
| Oat Hay | 10% | 31% | 54% |
| Bluegrass | 6% | 40% | 45% |
What Affects the Quality of Hay?
It’s essential to feed your sheep high-quality hay, or else they may not eat it or may eat it and end up sick from it. The key factors that determine the quality of hay include;
- Growing conditions
- Moisture content of the hay
- Ratio of leaves to stems and stem size (the higher the leaf content, the higher the quality)
- And maturity stage during harvest (younger plants make better hay)
- Weed control
- Weather at harvest and storage.
On the other hand, the hay’s nutritional value is affected;
- Curing Time
- Fertilization/Soil Fertility
- Harvesting Methods
- Forage Species
- Foreign Matter
- Odor And Condition
- Color
The harvesting methods comprise conditioning the hay or drying it quickly by crimping it, leading to nutrient loss and reducing the number of leaves while drying.
You can check the quality of alfalfa hay through the snap test. Alternatively, if you can easily bend the hay with your hand, it has less fiber, hence suitable for your sheep. If the stems snap, it is not ideal for your sheep.
READ ALSO: Can Sheep Eat Goat Feed? (Is It Nutritious for Them?)
Can Sheep Survive on Hay?
Yes, sheep will survive on hay alone although this is not the perfect scenario. However, they will pick grass over hay any day.
Since hay does not have every nutrient sheep need, you will have to supplement it with other foods to ensure your sheep receive all the necessary nutrients.
The best food types to supplement hay are pellets and grains but consider the hay’s nutritional content before introducing any supplements.
Some essential nutrients that could be missing in hay are minerals and vitamins. This is why you should not feed your sheep only hay.
Another compelling reason to offer other foods besides hay is to make your sheep happy. Your sheep will want diversity in their diet.
Therefore, avoid feeding your sheep only hay unless you do not have other options. Moreover, ensure that if your sheep’s diet is made entirely of hay, it is top-quality hay.
The Problems with Different Types of Hay
You must exercise caution when feeding your sheep hay because they can cause problems. Let us take a look at the issues of different types of hay.
Can Sheep Eat Alfalfa Hay?
Alfalfa hay is typically popular because it contains more minerals, calcium, and proteins than grass hay.
However, it is worth noting a sheep diet comprising only Alfalfa hay can be problematic since the calcium in the hay may be too much for your sheep.
In addition, alfalfa hay is pricey and can easily be wasted, so you are better off offering it to your sheep in a concentrated pellet.
Cereal Grain Hay
Cereals like oat make excellent hay when harvested when they are still green and young before the seed heads reach maturity. This type of hay comes with some degree of nitrate poisoning risk if harvested following a growth spurt after a drought spell. Therefore, consider testing cereal grain hay for nitrate beforehand.
Fescue Hay
Fescue can lead to “summer slump” or “fescue toxicity,” which is more severe and frequent when it is hot. The condition occurs when the animal ingests the toxin argovaline, resulting from an endophyte fungus growing in the fescue plant.
An animal suffering from this condition will suffer from rapid breathing, heat intolerance, reduced gains, nervousness, fever, rough coat, and decreased conception rates.
How to Grow High-Quality Hay
Most of the labor-intensive portion of hay production comes during harvesting, with multiple harvests done in a season.
The work entails cutting, raking, baling, and moving the hay. Nonetheless, you must also adopt proper management steps.
Here are steps that will help you get quality hay.
1. Choose the Best Field
You should ideally grow your sheep hay on a lot you already know does not struggle with weeds and is fertile.
2. Pick the Right Seeds
Consider ease of digestibility when picking the seeds. For instance, when planting alfalfa, go for a variety with low lignin, and your sheep will digest easily to raise the chances of producing abundant, healthy crops.
3. Scout the Field Regularly
Consistently checking your hay fields is essential since it helps you monitor the plants’ progress. Moreover, it allows you to catch any signs of pests or diseases early and, in turn, act accordingly to save your hay before it is too late.
4. Cut the Hay at The Right Time
As mentioned, harvesting the hay when the plants are still young, with green leaves and softer stems, is best.
Waiting too long results in the development of hard-to-digest woody stems. In addition, try to time the mowing time just before many dry days.
Leaves are vital in the production of quality hay, but you can quickly lose them if you handle the crop at the incorrect moisture level. For this reason, you want to rake the hay when it is relatively moist to prevent leaf loss.
5. Dry the Hay Quickly
You do not want your hay to take too long to dry, so lay it in a well-ventilated room with windows open. Doing so ensures the hay receives the best possible sun exposure.
6. Proper Storage
Hay storage is not such a big deal if you plan to use it within a few weeks. However, you must find a proper place to store your hay if you intend to store it for a while to prevent spoilage.
Store the hay bales under tarps or in a shed, and make sure they are touching the bare floor to keep them from drawing moisture or getting wet.
You can build up the surface with wooden pallets or gravel to prevent moisture exposure. Additionally, ensure the site has proper drainage.
Remember, prolonged storage lowers the nutritional levels of vitamin A and protein in the hay.
How to Buy the Best Hay for Sheep
You must inspect the hay before buying it to ensure it is in good condition for your sheep’s consumption.
Check the maturity, texture, color, and leafiness, ensuring the bales are not discolored or moldy due to fermentation (occurs in wet hay) and weathering.
In addition, make sure there are no foreign materials like weeds, dust, baling twines, wire, rocks, and sticks.
The exterior appearance of the hay may fool you, so inspect the inner parts of the bales. For example, the outer edges may fade due to conditions such as sun exposure, but the internal parts are green and perfectly okay.
How to Determine the Condition of Hay
Here is how to gauge the condition of hay with your senses.
- Sight– you can tell the hay’s maturity during harvest, the plant species in the hay, leaf loss or retention during harvest, and the presence of foreign objects and mold with your eyes.
- Smell– a musty smell indicates the presence of mold, while a tobacco smell means the hay is heated during curing, losing its protein content.
- Touch– you can tell if the hay is too moist and heating up by touching it.
Conclusion
Hay can supply your sheep’s nutritional needs, provided you supplement it with other foods like grains, clover, and pellets. Now you have the answer to the question, can sheep eat hay. The hay must be in good condition and high quality to preserve your sheep’s health
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