Feeding Of Ewes Important Factor In Lamb Growth

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 98, 22 September 1948, Page 5

Feeding Of Ewes Important Factor In Lamb Growth

The extent to which under-feed-ing of ewes both before and after lambing affects their milk yields, and consequently the rate of growth of lambs, is indicated by experimental work at Massey Agricultural College, where Romney ewes fed only a maintenance* ration yielded only about one-third as much, milk as ewes fed under good lamb-fat-tening conditions. The ‘trials were carried out with' about 60 five-year-old hill-country ewes fed at high and low nutritional levels on a dry feed mixture (somewhat similar in composition to the dry matter of grass), in order to control and measure their feed intakes. In this experiment the influence of ante-natal and post-natal feeding was studied by changing half of each group over to the other type of feeding at lambing. Ewes which Were fed well before and after lambing (“high-high” levels) yielded milk to about the same extent as ewes normally fed on grass under fat lamb raising conditions at the College. Those'fed only a maintenance ration (“low-low”) yielded only about one-third as much milk.' It is interesting to find that ewes fed well until lambing and thereafter at a low level (“high-low”) gave milk yields little better than those fed at a low level throughout the experiment (“low-low”). Ewes fed at a low level before lambing, but generously afterwards (“lowthigh”), while yielding more than the “high-low” group, ga>Ve much less than those fed throughout at a high level (“high-high”). The composition of the milk w r as also affected.