Yeast additive boosts lamb productivity

Lambs fed a yeast fermentation addition reach target finishing weights faster – generating more profit, suggests a study.

Animals fed Celmanax from weaning to slaughter resulted in a £18.91 per head advantage compared to lambs which did not receive additional supplementation, according to data from a 2022 farm trial.

Alison Bond, nutritionist for Rumenco and UK distributor of Celmanax, said the biggest contributor to the increase in profit was a significant increase in daily liveweight gains resulting in faster finishing times.

Half of all supplemented lambs were finished by the end of June, with an additional 35%  finished by the trial end. But only 8% of unsupplemented lambs were finished in June, with an additional 17% finished by the end of the trial.

Dr Bond said: “The nutritional benefits from Celmanax allowed lambs to achieve an average daily gain of 530g in the first four weeks of the trial, a 150g advantage over the control group that had an average daily gain of 380g.”

The study involved more than 650 10-week-old lambs on a commercial sheep farm in Wales. Lambs had negative worm counts, were managed on paddocks with a sward height of 9cm (2,500 kg DM/ha) and had free access to a mineral bucket.

Each group was supplemented with creep feed, allocated 1kg/h/day. The control group was fed standard creep feed and the treatment group received creep feed containing Celmanax to provide 0.5g/h/d.

Celmanax is a yeast fermentation additive that has been shown to improve ruminant performance by supporting a stable rumen environment. This in turn improves digestibility and feed efficiency.

The higher financial return from feeding Celmanax was achieved by a combination of fewer days on farm and the lambs earning a higher price by hitting the market early, said Dr Bond.

“Lamb prices are strong throughout June and then start to decline as you get into July and August.

“This is because the majority of lambs are finishing in the July-August period, flooding the market and driving down prices.”