Effects of grass and maize silage feed value, offering soybean meal with maize silage, and concentrate feed level in late pregnancy, on ewe and lamb performance.
Animal
; 15(1): 100068, 2021 Jan.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33515995
In many countries, daily herbage accumulation on pasture declines towards zero during the winter period; thus, many pregnant ewes are housed and offered conserved forages supplemented with concentrate prior to parturition. The effects of forage type and feed value (FV), offering soybean meal with maize silage during mid and late pregnancy, and concentrate feed level in late pregnancy on the performance of ewes and their progeny (to slaughter) were evaluated. Ewes (nâ¯=â¯151) were assigned to one of nine treatments from mid-pregnancy until lambing. Medium FV and high FV grass silages (metabolisable energy concentrations of 10.7 and 12.0â¯MJ/kg DM) were offered ad libitum supplemented with either 15 or 25â¯kg concentrate/ewe during late pregnancy. Low and high DM maize silages (starch concentrations of 80 and 315â¯g/kg DM) were offered ad libitum either alone or with soybean meal (200â¯g/d) and supplemented with 15â¯kg concentrate during late pregnancy. A final treatment consisted of high FV grass silage supplemented with 5â¯kg soybean/ewe over the final 4â¯weeks of pregnancy. Ewes and lambs were put to pasture in a rotational-grazing system within 3â¯days of lambing. There were no interactions (Pâ¯>â¯0.05) between grass silage FV and concentrate feed level for ewe or lamb traits. Increasing grass silage FV increased food intake (Pâ¯<â¯0.001) during late pregnancy, ewe BW and body condition score (BCS) at lambing (Pâ¯<â¯0.001), lamb BW at birth (Pâ¯<â¯0.001) and weaning (Pâ¯<â¯0.05), and reduced age at slaughter (Pâ¯=â¯0.06). Increasing concentrate feed level increased metabolisable energy (Pâ¯<â¯0.05) intake during late pregnancy but had no effect (Pâ¯>â¯0.05) on ewe or lamb performance. Increasing maize DM at harvest and offering soybean meal with maize silage increased food intake (Pâ¯<â¯0.001) and ewe BW and BCS at lambing (P <â¯0.05 or Pâ¯<â¯0.01). Offering soybean meal with maize silage increased lamb BW at birth (Pâ¯<â¯0.01) and reduced age at slaughter (Pâ¯<â¯0.05). Reducing supplementation of high FV grass silage to 5â¯kg of soybean meal had no effect (Pâ¯>â¯0.05) on animal performance. Replacing grass silage with maize silage did not affect (P >â¯0.05) BW gain of lambs. It is concluded that increasing the FV of the grass silage offered during pregnancy had the greatest positive impact on ewe and lamb performance.
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Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Ensilaje
/
Zea mays
Límite:
Animals
/
Pregnancy
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Animal
Año:
2021
Tipo del documento:
Article