Big bale silage has become increasingly popular on many livestock farms in Ireland yet there is limited information on its use for sheep. The objective of this experiment was to compare the effects of feeding chopped or unchopped big bale silage, pit silage and hay when supplemented with either a barley or a molassed sugar beet pulp based concentrate when fed to ewes in late pregnancy on feed intake, ewe weight and body condition score changes, gestation length, lamb birth weight and colostrum yield.

Sixty four mature lowland cross ewes (8/treatment) were oestrus synchronised in October and mated to terminal sire breeds (Suffolk, Texel or Charollais). The ewes were housed, winter shorn and pregnancy scanned in December, following which twin bearing animals were allocated to a 4 x 2 factorial experiment and individually fed either un-chopped or chopped big bale silage which had been wilted for 36-48 hours as is usual for this type of forage, pit silage, which had been wilted for 18-24 hours or hay.