Effects on ewe and lamb performance of supplementing housed twin bearing/rearing crossbred ewes with self-help feed-blocks and liquid feed during late pregnancy and early lactation

Extract

Twin-bearing crossbred ewes may be supplemented for a total period of up to 12 weeks during late pregnancy and early lactation, with feeding costs in some systems accounting for approximately 0.45 of variable costs. A less expensive mean of supplementing ewes over this period would be one practical way of reducing a major variable cost. Self-help feed-blocks have been successfully fed to hill ewes for many years and there is increasing evidence that a self-help feed-block system has applications within the more productive crossbred flocks. An experiment was undertaken which determined the effects on ewe and lamb performance of supplementing twin bearing/rearing Mule ewes with self-help feed-blocks and liquid feed during late pregnancy and early lactation. These systems were compared with the more traditional system of feeding compound nuts.

Sixty six twin-bearing Scotch Mule ewes per treatment in three pens were fed a basal diet of ad libitum baled grass/clover silage (dry matter (DM) 366 g/kg, pH 5.4, NH3N 71 g/kg, crude protein (CP) 155 g/kg DM and metabolisable energy (ME) 10.1 MJ/kg DM) supplemented with either a proprietary compound sheep nut (N), a reduced rate (approximately 0.60 of N) of the compound nut plus feed-blocks (NB) or feed-blocks plus liquid feed (BL).