THE SIX most expensive words in farming are:

'We've always done it this way'! John Vipond, of SRUC, in this article tells how a Welsh farmer saved more than £5500 on his feed bill through more appropriate supplementation of in lamb ewes.

Due to genetic improvement and increased lamb birth weight, most ration calculation tables are out of date and underfeed protein by up to 30%. Better protein supply can increase lamb survival and reduce the loss of immunity to worms by ewes.

Check your silage analysis - a rough approximation is that rumen bugs can only turn around 1% of CP into microbial protein per MJ of ME in the diet. Most silages have more protein than the bugs can handle and any excess is excreted which is wasting energy.

Winter and spring grown grass is similarly unbalanced and any added extra protein that is broken down in the rumen is wasted. What is required is undegradable protein.

Soya has proved the best source of undegradable protein, having the right amino acid balance. This becomes important with undegradable sources that can top up basic microbial protein supply.

Feed 100g of soya /lamb carried per day to ewes for the last three weeks. If the silage has an ME of 10.5 or more, or is low in CP, then this will be sufficient supplement along with 25g of a general mineral supplement /head /day.

For thin ewes, add 300g whole oats or SBP /day to the ration. With top quality silage at an ME of more than 11.0 MJ ME/kg/DM and CP over 11% use protected soya. Sopralin, Ultrasoy or Soypass are common examples and can be fed at half the soya rate as the undegradable fraction is about doubled by the protection treatment.

Another way of supplying DUP is to use blocks containing high levels of protected soya that are now on the market. These are targeted at lactating ewes, especially those rearing triplets and provide a unique solution to the problem of maintaining DUP intake when ewes go out to grass and still require high levels of protein for efficient milk production.

In SRUC trials, DUP-containing blocks have also been effective at topping up the needs of housed twin and triplets pre-lambing, when intakes of 250g/day were achieved along with high quality silage.

A Welsh farmer who has fully taken on board the message on feeding high quality forage with protected protein (in his case Sopralin, fed at 100g /day to twins) estimated his winter supplementary feed costs for twin ewes this year at £5.97. It comprised £3.80 for Sopralin, £1.36 for whole oats (fed at 300g /day to thin ewes only) and £0.81 for mineral powder.

The previous year, when feeding concentrates and mineral blocks, his bill was £16.63/ewe so his savings this year were over £10/ewe by having quality silage that met energy needs. This was baled material with a dry matter of 474g/kg, ME of 10.8 and CP of 11.9%.

Ewes were fed 1.3kg/day. Intake in late pregnancy is normally 1.6% of bodyweight. Fit ewes for the last month were on 14.5 MJ/ME /day and thin ones 17.6 MJ/day

He also claims that the new system saves a lot of time and hassle. Feeding smaller amounts means less time spent moving bags about, saves cost, and the time spent adopting or bottle rearing.

According to Kate Rowell, of the QMS-sponsored Borders Monitor farm, which also adopted the system: "When you are really busy you have more time for saving lambs".'