Technology of Raising Meat Sheep

1. Moderate scale breeding of mutton sheep

Like any other industry, sheep farming should pursue economies of scale. The appropriate scale of meat goat breeding depends on many factors, such as farmers' investment ability, market price, grassland area, feeding and management conditions, male-female ratio and so on. In the case of natural mating of goats, the proportion of breeding rams and fertile ewes is generally 1:25, and the appropriate size should be 40 to 50.

2. Meat sheep should be raised in groups.

In addition to breeding sheep, the traditional way of mutton sheep production is self-breeding. As the production purposes of breeder sheep and lambs are different, breeder sheep and weaned lambs should be raised in groups or households. The feeding and management of breeder sheep is more extensive than that of lambs, the key point is to maintain the physical condition of breeding, timely mating, prevent mismatch and abortion, and give adequate nutrition during mating and pregnancy, while the focus of lamb feeding and management is to provide nutritious forage throughout the process, pay attention to cold protection, warmth and disease prevention.

3. Mutton sheep breeding and construction of off-ground sheep house

The off-ground sheep house has the advantages of dryness, ventilation and easy removal of feces, so it has been widely used in the south of the Yangtze River where there are many Rain Water and high humidity. However, attention should be paid to the cold-proof and warm work of the off-ground sheep house in winter, so as not to affect the growth and development of lambs and the fat loss of mutton sheep.

4. Breeding and planting high-quality forage grass for mutton sheep

Forage is the main food of goats. Providing high quality forage with rich nutrition and good palatability for goats is the key to high quality and efficient breeding of goats. Sheep farmers in our city can make use of rotation or interplanting high-quality and high-yield forage grasses such as ryegrass, forage corn and yellow bamboo grass, such as mountain bend fields, winter fallow fields, hillside fields and economic forests, as well as other agricultural and sideline products such as soybean straw, peanuts and sweet potato vines. Basically, it can solve the green feed source of raising sheep all the year round, in order to reduce the raising cost and increase the benefit of raising sheep.

5. Fattening in lamb house

The goal of fattening lambs is to improve daily gain and feed efficiency. Traditional grazing and fattening made lambs lose a lot of physical energy, resulting in lower feed utilization rate, daily gain and longer fattening period, resulting in an increase in breeding costs. Therefore, promoting fattening in lamb house is one of the important measures for efficient breeding of goats. House feeding and fattening should supplement mineral matter and concentrate on the premise of ensuring sufficient green feed or hay. Farmers can buy goat mineral licking bricks and hang them in the pen for sheep to lick freely. The concentrate can be prepared by ourselves with raw materials such as corn and bean cake. Compared with grazing fattening, the fattening period of goats fed in house was shortened by 1 to 2 months.

6. Suitable body weight for mutton sheep breeding.

The suitable body importance of meat goats was comprehensively evaluated according to the production performance indexes such as daily gain, feed utilization rate, slaughtering rate and market demand. If the body weight is too low, the growth potential of the goat is not brought into full play, and the meat yield is also low; the body weight is too high, although the meat yield increases, but the feed utilization rate decreases. The suitable age for goats of different breeds or hybrid combinations is from 6 to 8 months old.

First, mutton sheep breeding pay attention to breed selection, raising sheep in the house should be combined with the local production reality, and choose the breeds that adapt to the local climatic and ecological conditions, high production performance, good product quality, short feeding cycle and high economic benefits. Sheep such as small-tailed Han sheep and goats such as Boer goat hybrid sheep are suitable for house feeding, and the effect is better.

Second, build a sheep enclosure

A good enclosure should be built for raising sheep, and there should be plenty of space for activities. The enclosure should protect against heat in summer and cold in winter. The site should be located in a place with high and dry terrain, good ventilation and good shelter from the wind and convenient drainage. For epidemic prevention, it is best to stay away from roads and villages more than 500 meters. The sheep house is mostly brick and wood structure, sitting north to the south, showing a rectangular layout. It can be built into a plastic greenhouse in winter for heat preservation, and pay attention to leaving exhaust holes on the roof to prevent the air in the house from getting dirty and humidity. There should be a playground in front of the sheep house, which is 3-4 times the area of the sheep house. There should be fixed or mobile feeding trough around and in the middle of the sports ground, the fixed feeding trough should be made of cement or brick, the trough should be wide and narrow, and the bottom of the trough should be round; the mobile feeding trough can be made of wood. In addition, a fixed sink or basin should also be placed in the middle of the playground to drink water for sheep.

The area of the sheep shed is determined according to the number of sheep raised. Usually each sheep covers an average area of 0.8 to 1.2 square meters. The area of breeding sheep is larger, the breeding sheep and lambs are smaller, the sheep are bigger and the goats are smaller. The height of the sheep house is generally 2.5 meters, the width of the door is not less than 1.6 meters, and the height of the window from the ground is not less than 1.5 meters, in order to ensure good lighting and ventilation. The doors and windows should be made of wood. The suitable span is 7 to 8 meters. According to the fire protection requirements, the length of each sheep house should not exceed 30 meters.

III. Strengthen feeding and management

Ensure feed supply

Sheep raised in the house must ensure that there is adequate forage so that there is a balanced supply of feed throughout the year. Feed is divided into roughage and concentrate, mainly to feed forage grass. Roughage mainly includes all kinds of green and dry forage, crop straw and succulent root feed. Sheep like to eat a variety of forage grasses. If a few kinds of forage are often fed, it will cause anorexia, reduce feed intake, slow down weight gain and affect growth. Therefore, we should pay attention to increase the variety of forage grass and improve the appetite of mutton sheep as much as possible. A certain amount of concentrate feed must also be fed during the house feeding period. Concentrate feed is mainly composed of soybean meal and corn, with appropriate addition of a variety of vitamins and minerals. Among them, the minerals are mainly iron, zinc, selenium and copper, and other minerals should be added according to the lack of trace elements in the soil of this area. In order to reduce the feed cost, some non-protein nitrogen such as urea can be added to the diet as the supply of protein feed source, the general daily addition is 8g / d.

Sheep farmers can store forage according to the actual scale of raising sheep, and can use forage land to plant forage grass and silage corn if possible; they can also purchase corn stalks with ears for silage in the corn wax maturity stage, so as to reduce the cost of forage. The consumption of forage feed, the planting area of silage corn, the volume of silage cellar and silage can be calculated according to the following methods: the average daily crude feed consumption of an adult ram and ewe is 3 kg and the annual crude feed consumption is 1 ton. The average daily consumption of refined feed is 0.25 kg, and the annual consumption of refined feed is 90 kg. The adult sheep and lambs are calculated according to 75% and 25% of the adult sheep respectively.