WildLife Group
of the SAVA
Feeding animals, the different types of feed:
General
• All Feed must be placed in a decent feed bowl,
that gets cleaned periodically
• If hay is supplied as a roughage source, place it
in a separate bowl or hay stack on the side, away
from the supplement or semi adlib feed.
• Do not allow hay to be placed on the ground
directly;
• Animals tend to lie, urinate and defecate on
it, rendering it useless.
• This will prevent soil moisture from being
absorbed into the bale of hay – creating
a suitable environment for mould/fungal
growth.
• When feeding, supplying the animals with one or
two bowls for the whole herd is not advised. This
creates the situation where only a few animals
will eat all of the feed, leaving the rest of the
herd without any.
• When feeding supplements and semi adlib feeds,
a long line of feed bowls, or a long feeding crib/
space is not advised, as the dominant animal
tends to chase younger and non-dominant
animals away, resulting in the dominant animals
eating more than the rest.
Suggested feeding methods when feeding
supplements and semi adlib feeds (NOT ROUGHAGE):
• Measure out the required amount of feed, and
supply accordingly.
• To prevent dominance and over eating in
intensive production units (breeding herds in
camps);
• All feed bowls must be placed far enough
from each other to prevent dominance at a
particular feed bowl.
• Allow 2.5 animal lengths between bowls.
• Place the bowls in a huge block - in a chessboard fashion.
• This allows the non-dominant animals to
avoid the dominant animals, giving each
animal a chance to eat.
• Where both male and female animals have
horns, it is advised to have 20% more bowls than
animals.
• Where only males have horns, about four to six
10
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animals to a bowl is advised
To ensure all animals get a chance to eat their
amount on a daily basis – or get it as an average
over the feeding period
• Train the animals to eat at the bowls
• When placing the feed, only do so if and when
all the animals are near
• This allows all the animals a chance to get
food, and prevent one animal from over
eating.
• If feed is left over supply the same amount less
the next day.
Move feeding sights/bowls periodically.
When feeding supplements in the form of pellets,
supply the pellets separate to the hay.
• This ensures all animals get a chance to eat
their share of pellets and prevent some from
only getting hay.
To prevent rumen disorders like rumenitis and
acidosis, animals need to be adapted to any new
feed.
• So when introducing animals to a feed or
changing feed, it is very important to adapt the
animals; do it over approximately 5 weeks 1/5th the first week, 2/5ths the second week until the desired intake, as prescribed, is eaten.
Supplying animal’s supplements or semi adlib
feed in the form of a pellets or self-mix recipes
in large multi specie camps, hunting camps and
game reserves, where it is impossible to follow
the above mentioned suggestions. Place the feed
in the bowls every 2 to 3 days.
• This will prevent any one animal from staying
at the feeding sight day after day, eating their
belly full for a few days in a row, preventing
possible rumen disorders
Semi adlib feeds
• When feeding animals semi adlib feed diets in
the form of pellets; care must be taken when
doing so. Supplying an animal with 2/3rds of
their total daily feed intake should be done
gradually, over a period of a few weeks allowing
their rumen microbes time to adapt to the
pelleted ration.
• The reason for this;