Two things sold long-time sheepman Arnold Ahrens on Sheep-lyx™: 13 sets of triplets with no problems and better milking production from his ewes.
"I've never been an advocate of that kind of feeding program - of liquid feed or blocks or any of it," Ahrens says. "I've always been a commercial grain mix guy."
But once he got Sheep-lyx™ on his northwestern Arkansas commercial sheep operation, the proof was in the lamb crop. Ahrens, who has raised sheep for nearly 50 years and jokes that he and an orphan lamb probably shared a bottle in his playpen back when Arnold was a baby, has never liked triplet lamb births.
He's had trouble with ewes going down with pregnancy disease from being energy deficient. And even if the ewe doesn't get sick, she usually can't produce enough milk to raise three lambs. But after he put Sheep-lyx™ out for his 75 ewes beginning in the fall of 1999 and continuing through flushing and gestation the next spring, Ahrens saw that triplets aren't always instant problems.
Even with 13 sets of triplets, he never had any pregnancy disease. And the lambs all were born close together, an indication the ewes all settled on their first or second cycle. Even one old ewe, over 10 years old, had triplets without problems this spring.
Milk production was also up. "it was like they'd gone from a B (cup) to a D (cup)," Ahrens says. A weight check on one set of triplets found them all uniformly about 70 pounds at weaning. "That ewe weaned off over 200 pounds of lamb," he adds.
Finding a good sheep mineral has been difficult for him so he appreciates the mineral package in Sheep-lyx™. But what he really likes is the energy in Sheep-lyx™. "Higher energy is the one thing I need more than anything." He likes the convenience of putting out the Sheep-lyx™ barrels instead of graining the ewes every day. So much that he didn't grain the ewes at all during flushing.
"I've already told several people about Sheep-lyx™. About how good my lamb crop was and that I didn't have any pregnancy disease for the first time."
