Days to market and feed cost for grass, mixed, and grain-finished lamb.
Days to market
70 lb of gain needed
100 days
Total feed needed
315 lb
Total feed cost
$88.20
Cost per lb of gain
$1.26
Feed cost per finished lb
on hoof, feed only
$0.68
Lamb is a small-carcass enterprise — most US lambs finish at 120–150 lb live. Grass-finished lambs take 8–10 months and eat a lot of forage per pound of gain; grain creep finishes in 4–5 months.
Dressing percentage runs 50–55% for lamb, so a 130 lb finish yields roughly 65–72 lb hanging carcass. Plan your market price against hanging weight, not live.
gain = finish_weight − weaned_weight
days = gain ÷ avg_daily_gain
total_feed = gain × FCR
total_cost = total_feed × feed_cost_per_lb