It is nearly 30 years since the Department of Agriculture and Lachlan Steel, Cowra, introduced the Cowra lick feeder to deliver grain supplements to sheep.
In its various forms it has proven to be popular as it delivers positive effects on growth rate, disease prevention, lambing percentages and pasture substitution.
The description of such feeders as ‘lick’ feeders is obvious, but the notion that intake stops when the animal gets tired of licking is not true.
Individual sheep eat different and repeatable amounts when supplement is trailed or fed from a trough.
This may alarm those producers who group feed and nutritionally budget for physiological events such as lambing and drought.
The economic and labour advantages of lick feeders is not disputed, but by understanding supplementation these advantages can be improved.
Lots of research went into the development of the lick feeder and one clever experiment involved coating grain supplement with the chemical Ytterbium acetate (Yb).
It also involved placing canvas bags on the backsides of the trial sheep.
When the sheep ate the labelled supplement, the Yb was not digested and by collecting the faeces the amount of supplement eaten could be determined.
This tiresome procedure was applied to supplements (lupins alone, and lupins plus oats) fed through a lick feeder or by trailing.
The results are informative and supported by other researchers using alternative methods.
Firstly, trailing the supplement incurred greater than 15 percent wastage compared to nil at the feeder when correctly set.
Wastage can be a problem even when using troughs (18-24%) and is highest when the amount offered is high.
There were some shy feeders even though the merino wethers had been exposed to lick feeders prior to the experiment.
These sheep slowly became involved.
Secondly, individual sheep ate different amounts of supplement.
Merino wethers on dry pasture were offered a trail of supplement at the average rate of 600g/sheep.
A similar pattern of intake was found with the lick feeder.
Furthermore, the pattern did not change when the number of wethers was doubled or the lupin supplement was changed to lupins plus oats.
For 30 years, the Cowra lick feeder has reduced wastage and permitted the feeding of a wide variety of supplements and mixes.
- Peter Holst is a former CSIRO professor who designed the Cowra lick feeder.
