CRYSTALYX® Testimonials

Sheep-lyx™

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CRYSTALYX® Sheep-lyx™ is a 16% protein, high energy supplement designed for all classes of sheep consuming forage-based diets. Sheep-lyx™ contains no added copper.

Features/Benefits

• High Energy
  No non-nutritive fillers or binders Very low moisture (typically two to five percent)
• All-Natural Protein
  Protein is carefully balanced to provide rumen available and bypass protein. Balanced protein can enhance growth, lactation and reproductive performance and wool growth.
• Flexibility
  Sheep-lyx™ is an excellent source of supplemental energy.
• Palatability
  Sheep-lyx™ can be used to attract sheep to under-utilized grazing areas.
• No Added Copper
  Due to the sensitivity of sheep to copper, no supplemental copper is added to Sheep-lyx™.

Raising high quality lambs is a must for Richard Driggs. He supplies lambs for 4-H projects in northwestern Arkansas so he asks a lot from his 32 ewes. And he's found that Sheep-lyx™ helps his ewes meet the challenge.

Before Richard began feeding Sheep-lyx™ in the spring of 1999, he used to feed a home-mixed 18 percent protein mixture to the ewes along with corn to flush them three weeks before breeding. For the 2000 breeding season he just fed hay, whole kernel corn and Sheep-lyx™ - and got a lamb crop of 53 lambs from 32 ewes.

Not only were the ewes ready to be bred, but he found the flock was healthier this season: he didn't spend as much time doctoring sick lambs and the ewes maintained their weight right through weaning. When he compares the cost of a 125-pound Sheep-lyx™ barrel against purchasing high quality grain to make his own protein mix - Sheep-lyx™ comes out on top.

"If you're used to raising sheep on pasture, then yes, Sheep-lyx™ is more expensive," Driggs admits. "But, if you're used to having to feed grain to produce quality animals, then Sheep-lyx™ is less expensive."

Richard considers Sheep-lyx™ a valuable component in producing high quality lambs now, but it took a scraggly looking club lamb to open his eyes to the possibility. Tim Craig, a CRYSTALYX^® dealer in Gravette, AR, bought a club lamb for his daughter. Richard checked the lamb out on tattoo day and told Tim the lamb had the frame it needed, but Tim was going to have to feed it carefully. When fair time rolled around, Tim's daughter showed up with "this huge, nice, pretty lamb," Richard remembers.

When Richard found out Sheep-lyx™ was part of that lamb's diet, he provided a barrel for his own ewes before flushing. Now he leaves two barrels out during lambing, and one barrel out the rest of the year.

"If Sheep-lyx™ can do that for that lamb, then it can do everything I need," he says.