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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2017
It has been clearly established that shearing ewes during pregnancy increases lamb birthweight (Austin and Young, 1971; Rutter, Laird and Broadbent, 1971; Black and Chestnutt, 1990). Fewer studies have examined the response of fattening lambs to shearing although both Salman and Owen (1981) and Marai, Nowar and Bahgat (1987) noted a significant increase in growth rate. This was accompanied by an increase in voluntary food intake and consequently little change in the food conversion efficiency.
The objective of these experiments was to study the influence of shearing on voluntary food intake and growth rate of fattening lambs offered various levels of concentrate feeding plus ad libitum forage.