6 Sheep Nutrition For Growing Lambs For First-Year Success

You’ve watched the ewe through her pregnancy, assisted with a smooth delivery, and now you have a wobbly, wet lamb on the ground. The first year of that lamb’s life is a race, a rapid conversion of nutrition into a strong, healthy frame. Getting their diet right from day one sets the stage for everything that follows, from flock health to future productivity.

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Foundational Nutrition for Healthy Lamb Growth

The goal for a lamb’s first year isn’t just survival; it’s about building a robust foundation for a long, productive life. Think of it like constructing a house. The first few months are the concrete foundation and framing—if you cut corners here, the entire structure will be compromised later.

Proper nutrition directly impacts everything from skeletal development and muscle growth to the maturation of their immune system. A lamb that struggles with poor nutrition early on may be permanently stunted, more susceptible to parasites, and less likely to thrive as an adult. The investment in high-quality feed now pays dividends for years.

The Critical Role of Colostrum in the First Day

Nothing is more important in the first 24 hours of a lamb’s life than colostrum. This "first milk" is a super-concentrated package of antibodies, energy, and nutrients that a lamb is born without. It provides passive immunity, essentially jump-starting the lamb’s ability to fight off common bacteria and viruses in its new environment.

The lamb’s gut can only absorb these crucial antibodies for a very short window, with absorption rates dropping dramatically after 12 hours. You must ensure a lamb gets a good feeding of colostrum within the first 6 hours of birth. If a ewe has little milk, is sick, or rejects a lamb, you have to intervene.

Always have a backup plan. A frozen supply of colostrum from another ewe on your farm is the gold standard. If that isn’t available, a high-quality powdered colostrum replacer is a necessary piece of your lambing kit. Don’t confuse it with a supplement; in an emergency, you need a full replacer to deliver the required antibodies.

Milk Replacer vs. Ewe’s Milk for Young Lambs

Ideally, every lamb is raised by its mother. Ewe’s milk is perfectly formulated, always available at the right temperature, and teaches the lamb important social behaviors. But on a small farm, reality often intervenes—you’ll eventually face triplets, orphaned lambs, or a ewe who can’t produce enough milk.

This is where you must decide between supplementing or raising a "bottle baby." Supplementing involves letting the lamb nurse from the ewe but offering a bottle once or twice a day to top it off. Raising a bottle baby means removing the lamb entirely and taking on all feeding duties. The tradeoff is clear: bottle-feeding is a significant time commitment, but it can save a lamb that would otherwise perish.

When choosing a milk replacer, select one specifically formulated for lambs. Calf or goat milk replacers do not have the right fat-to-protein ratio and can cause digestive issues. Follow the mixing instructions precisely—improperly mixed replacer can lead to scours (diarrhea) or malnutrition.

Introducing Creep Feed to Encourage Rumen Growth

A lamb is born as a monogastric animal, meaning it digests milk in a single stomach compartment. To become a true ruminant, its four-part stomach—especially the rumen—must develop. Creep feeding is the best way to encourage this transition.

A creep feeder is simply a feeding area that lambs can enter but ewes cannot. You can build a simple one with a pallet or a gate with openings just big enough for the lambs. Start offering a high-protein (18-20%) creep feed when lambs are about two weeks old. They won’t eat much at first, just nibbling and exploring, but this early exposure is key.

This early introduction to solid food stimulates the growth of the microbes and papillae that line the rumen, which are essential for digesting forage later on. It also makes the weaning process far less stressful, as the lambs are already accustomed to eating solid food and don’t rely solely on their mother’s milk for nutrition. A good creep feed program shortens the transition to forage.

Managing the Weaning Diet Transition Carefully

Weaning is one of the most stressful events in a young lamb’s life. It’s a dietary, social, and psychological shock all at once. A smooth transition is crucial to prevent growth setbacks and illness.

The key is to make changes gradually. Don’t change their location, social group, and diet all on the same day. If you’ve been creep feeding, the lambs already have a functioning rumen and know how to eat solid food, which is a huge advantage. For at least a week post-weaning, keep them on the same high-quality feed they were eating in the creep pen.

After that first week, you can slowly begin to transition them to their next ration, whether it’s a grower pellet or primarily high-quality pasture. Mix the new feed with the old, gradually increasing the proportion of the new feed over 7-10 days. This gives their rumen microbes time to adapt, preventing digestive upset and keeping them on a steady growth curve.

High-Quality Forage for Post-Weaning Success

Once a lamb is weaned and its rumen is fully functional, high-quality forage becomes the cornerstone of its diet. Not all hay or pasture is created equal. Young, growing animals need better-than-average forage to continue gaining weight and building muscle.

For pasture, this means dense, leafy grasses and legumes. For hay, you want a soft, green, fine-stemmed second or third cutting, preferably a mix with alfalfa or clover for higher protein content. Coarse, yellow, stemmy hay is mostly filler and won’t provide the energy and protein a growing lamb requires.

Think of forage quality in terms of a power-to-weight ratio. A lamb has a small rumen and can only eat so much in a day. Every mouthful must be packed with nutrition to meet its high metabolic demands. Poor-quality forage fills them up without providing the necessary building blocks for growth, leading to a "hay belly" appearance where the lamb looks full but is actually undernourished.

Providing Free-Choice Minerals and Clean Water

This is one of the easiest and most overlooked aspects of lamb nutrition. Water and minerals are non-negotiable for healthy development. A lamb’s body is over 70% water, and it’s essential for every metabolic function, from digestion to temperature regulation.

Lambs need constant access to fresh, clean water. They will not drink enough if the water is dirty, stale, or frozen. On a hot day, a growing lamb can drink over a gallon of water, so check troughs and buckets daily. This simple task can have a bigger impact on growth rates than you might think.

A loose mineral mix designed specifically for sheep should be available free-choice at all times. Sheep have a low tolerance for copper, so never use a general livestock or goat mineral, which can contain toxic levels of copper. The right mineral mix provides essential micronutrients like selenium and cobalt that are often deficient in soils and forages, supporting strong immune function and proper growth.

Monitoring Lamb Growth and Adjusting Rations

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. While you can get a general sense of a lamb’s condition by eye, regularly weighing your lambs provides objective data that tells you if your nutrition program is actually working.

A simple livestock scale or even a weigh tape can give you the numbers you need. Aim to weigh them at consistent intervals, such as at birth, at 30 days, and at weaning. A healthy, well-fed lamb should be gaining between 0.5 and 0.8 pounds per day, depending on its breed and genetics.

If a group of lambs is falling short of this target, it’s a clear signal to reassess their diet. Are they getting enough protein? Is the forage quality high enough? Is there too much competition at the feeder? This data allows you to make informed adjustments to their rations, spotting a problem and correcting it before it leads to a significant setback in their development.

Ultimately, a lamb’s first-year success is a direct reflection of your management. By focusing on these nutritional cornerstones—from colostrum at birth to high-quality forage after weaning—you give them the best possible start, building a resilient and productive flock for the future.