# Sheep treats



## Cat (Jun 19, 2004)

I was thinking about this today while I was outside doing my best to get chores down without murdering a ewe or 2 who were kicking mineral out of the mineral pan AND pulling the mineral pail off the fence when I tried to make it less-kickable. Someone needs to breed a share gene into these wooly beasts! :haha: 

What I was thinking of doing is making a grain biscuit that can be formed like a dog biscuit although not quite so hard. This way instead of having to hold out my hand and let them scatter grain on the ground I can give one and go. I have 2 ewes that I'd like to be able to slip grain to without having to pen them seperately and/or sit there and try to sneak it to them without the other ewes suspecting because those buggers can sense grain in my hand, I think! Anyway a grain biscuit would work quite well, could carry it in my pocket without having to worry about grain falling all over when I take my coat off. Anyone have any ideas as to how to go about this?


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

I've always thought those granola bars were animal feed. Neat idea but I wouldn't have a clue how to do it. We've used bread as sheep treats, and even a supliment, when we had a steady supply.


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## MorrisonCorner (Jul 27, 2004)

Why heavens.. that's a great idea! I know of one woman who will bury meds in a fig newton. Apparently sheep like fig newtons. But a crisp or cracker which you could hand out would be WAY useful. Ok... let me ask someone on another forum.


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## mamalisa (Feb 1, 2004)

Sheep eat fig newtons? Neat! Next time I have medicine to give, I'll remember that.

Mine won't eat bread, but the goats do. Go figure. It's nice wholegrain homemade bread, too! 

Do your sheep eat squash? I had oodles of leftover monster squash...some turban type thing that appeared one day and ate not only my garden, but half my field....so I cut it up and gave it to them. They loved it....


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## Jen H (Jun 16, 2004)

I find that my goats will at least try just about anything I have in my hands. The sheep are much more particular.

I have a granola bar type thing I do in my dehydrator for hiking snacks. Looking at the ingredients, I don't see anything bad for sheep here:

3/4 C oil
2/3 C honey
4 apples, peeled, cored, and grated
-Blend together till smooth

3 C rolled oats
1 C sunflower seeds
1 C chopped dates
- Mix these in with the apple mixture

- Let stand for an hour so the oats can soak up the flavors

-Drop by the spoonful onto dehydrator trays and dry until firm.

That seems like too much oil for sheep, but it's just there for moisture so molasses should work (my sheep like molasses). Also, there's no reason you couldn't add different grains and meds to this. I haven't tried feeding any of them to my critters, but there's nothing in there that they don't like.

Hmm, I'm going to have to start experimenting. Wormer cookies, anyone?


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## becky4050 (Jan 11, 2005)

I devised a treat for my dogs when I needed to give them meds. I use cooked brown rice, bound together with plenty of egg, oatmeal and then chopped up meat scraps (chicken skin, etc.) to give it flavor. I spread it in a baking pan and bake until firm. It comes out like a rice loaf. For sheep you could add grains to it instead of the meat and then after baking, cut it in pieces and let them dry in a slow oven or dehydrator until crunchy. My dogs love the treats so much I have started giving it to them on a regular basis, one treat a day in addition to their kibble. I used the rice because I had a huge bag of it from the food coop and it was full of weed seeds - too hard to clean for humans but the dogs don't mind. Anyway, experiment and you will be surprised at what you may come up with!


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## Cat (Jun 19, 2004)

Great ideas, thanks everyone!! Thanks! I thought about using molasses but don't know a thing about which binders would work ~ didn't know if molasses would do the trick or if I needed something more substantial. I might have to do some experimenting and see what I can come up with!


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## kesoaps (Dec 18, 2004)

I've got a couple of ewes who are absolute junk food junkies! DD has to hide her crackers (they adore the Ritz with cheese or peanut butter!) when she goes out. But what they all love is Cinnamon Toast Crunch! I thought one of them, who normally doesn't snack, was going to take my fingers off! I'd brought an old bag out for the chickens, but Jazz was loose (as always!) and nearly flattened me trying to get to the goods :haha: 

I used to do a recipe similar to that for the horses. They gobbled them right up!


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## jacobs (Jan 11, 2005)

My sheep love marshmallows and they go into attack mode for graham crackers! Special snack treats sound good and some of the recipes mentioned above I'd probably eat myself! Try milkbone dog biscuits.


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## MorrisonCorner (Jul 27, 2004)

Ok.. so in Vermont it is the Farm Festival in Barre... this is the "real farmers," great honking pieces of equipment and real money involved. If we little guys want to show up and buy something they're happy to talk to us (we're making a growing body of consumers, some of the equipment has even been scaled down for us... like the log splitting company that built massive units for pros and now has home user models). But there were feed companies there.

They were very nice. Didn't look at me like I was insane (ok, one did..).

The rep from Poulin feeds, which is a Vermont feed company (not national) said there was a 4H group who used his bagged sheep feed as a basis for "sheep cookies" which they sold to visitors at a county fair so they could feed the sheep (without killing them off).

They ground a 50 pound bag of his product to make a flour. I almost had a coronary. I mean... that is a LOT of flour for one thing, and they did it with a BLENDER! EEK. You've just got to think that is one blender that's been retired.

He thinks they used more molassas as the binder, but he offered to find out.

He also was of the opinion that one could take the basic bagged feed and blend it with grated apples and a little honey or molassas, spread it out on a cookie sheet and while it was baking the molassas already in there, plus the honey binder, would probably make a nice crisp (lumpy) wafer.

He was not sure, however, what impact this might have on the vitamin formulation that's already in there (our feeds are laced with selenium among other things), so wouldn't advise relying on "sheep treats" as the sole source of grain for breeds that really require grain.

Also, someone on the sheep forum in Vermont suggested Sydell products:http://www.sydell.com/ saying they had multi sheep circular partitioned feeders which pretty much put an end to the sharing issue. On the other hand, she's feeding 60 sheep, not 10.


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## becky4050 (Jan 11, 2005)

I just found a site called www.recipezaar.com where they have a whole big section of recipes for pets. If you go to the home page, then look on the list on the left, go down to "novelty", then "nonfood products", pet foods will be under that. They are, of course, mostly recipes for dogs but there were some for horses that could definitely be tweaked (Sport and Misty's Horse Cookies and one called Barn Cookies). Hope this gives you a place to start!


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## Jen H (Jun 16, 2004)

Ok, so the sheep cookies are a big hit. I thought I was gonna get trampled!

I used:

1/4 cup oil (otherwise the cookies are really hard)
1/2 cup molasses
2/3 cup honey (to glom everything together)
3 grated apples (peel, core, and all)

-mix these together, and then add;

3 cups rolled oats
1 cup black oil sunflower seeds (hulls and all)
1 cup of raisins (some really hard ones that got stuck in the back of the cupboard)
1/2 cup whole dried corn

- Let the mixture stand for an hour or so, so that the oats can soak up the moisture.

-spray dehydrator sheets with Pam so you can pry the things off. Drop spoonfulls onto the dehydrator sheets and dry until kind of firm (24 hours in my machine).

I shaped some of them like thumbprint cookies and filled the depression with ivermectin paste. They were inhaled. No fuss, no coaxing, they were just gobbled up.

I don't know why this didn't occur to me a long time ago. In fact, I'm going to make some up with copper for the goats - no more bolusses!


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

What a no fuss way to worm!! I'd have to bake for a week but still might be useful for a small flock. Check your local regs about off lable use of drugs, I know its Ivomec but paste isn't cleared for sheep so you're subject to the extended withdrawl times. Vet script or 35 days here


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## Jen H (Jun 16, 2004)

I will check on that. The paste is what I've been using for the goats, so that's what I have on hand right now. My critters really are just pets that I use to make rugs and scarves out of. I think my husband would kill me if I butchered one of them.


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## mawalla (Oct 28, 2002)

What a fun Idea! We've made peanut butter dog biscuits for the dogs. I can get the kids to make BAA-BAA Biscuits for the sheep!


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## kesoaps (Dec 18, 2004)

Jen, thanks for the recipe idea. And thumbprint cookies...how clever!


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## Cat (Jun 19, 2004)

Wow, all I have to say is FANTASTIC! Thanks Jen for the recipe! I haven't even thought about the worming aspect, just how to sneak treats to the one or two that I want to spoil right now. I'd also like to feed these two kelp and can add that to the mixture and not have to worry about putting it in the grain and losing it in the bottom of the pan. I'm really excited about this!

As far as sharing, the darn sheeps have constant supply of mineral but when I fill it they go nuts and if one is eating the others think that, "Hey! If I don't hurry to the mineral pan and butt her out of the way she might eat allll of the mineral and I would perish before it's refilled." They're SO afraid someone else is going to eat something that they themselves don't have that they're quite obnoxious! :lol: I don't think any contraption would fix this behavior. Ya gotta love 'em.


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## garyf (Jan 31, 2005)

I have used the Dumor Horse Treats, Carrots and apple for a sheep treat. They get hooked on them like sheep crack. I even soaked them in Ivromec but has to be done slowly. I know it works on Jacobs, Shetlands and Angora goats.

Gary


ÃÃ¥ThÃ«RÃ®Ã±Ã¨ said:


> What I was thinking of doing is making a grain biscuit that can be formed like a dog biscuit although not quite so hard.


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