Maintenance and lactation requirements of grazing sheep

I.E. Coop and K.R. Drew

Lincoln College, Canterbury

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Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production. 1963, 23: 53-62

Experiments have been conducted with penned sheep and grazing sheep fed at maintenance. In comparison with pen-fed sheep, grazing of long pasture for a short time increased maintenance requirements by about 20 to 30%, but grazing of short pasture which just enabled sheep to maintain body weight caused a 50 to 80% increase. Shearing caused further increases of the order of 20 to 40% for the first month after shearing in autumn. Attempts have been made to measure the intake of lactating ewes. Estimates, subject to considerable error, placed the requirements about 20% above those of existing feeding standards.

Keywords: NZSAPAB;

Last Updated 24-08-2000