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Growth performance and carcass traits of early-weaned lambs as affected by the nutritional regimen of lactating ewes

2014; Elsevier BV; Volume: 120; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.smallrumres.2014.03.008

1879-0941

Diego Barcelos Galvani, Cléber Cassol Pires, Cristiano Haetinger Hübner, Sérgio Carvalho, Tatiana Pfüller Wommer,

Effects of Environmental Stressors on Livestock

Three isonitrogenous diets with different levels of metabolizable energy (ME; 10.3, 10.9, and 11.5 MJ/kg) were fed to lactating ewes to study the relationships among milk yield and feed intake, growth rate, and carcass traits of early-weaned lambs. Eighteen multiparous Texel × Ile de France ewes (55.7 ± 1.3 kg of initial body weight; BW) supporting single male lambs were penned individually at 24 h after lambing and evaluated for 42 days. Lambs had free access to a creep feeding system before weaning (42 days of age), and after that they were individually penned and fed a common diet until reaching the slaughter weight (32 kg of BW). Carcasses were then evaluated after 24 h of refrigeration. Dry matter and ME intake of ewes presented a quadratic relationship with energy level of the diet (P < 0.05), and it directly affected milk yield (P < 0.01). Milk yield was correlated with DM intake (r = −0.75; P < 0.01) and growth rate (r = 0.74; P < 0.01) of lambs from birth to weaning. On the other hand, in this period there was no relationship between solid feed intake and ADG of lambs (r = −0.05; P > 0.05). Therefore, creep feed supplementation was not enough to support a similar growth rate among lambs ingesting different amounts of milk. From weaning to slaughter, DM intake of lambs was greater (P < 0.05) for the lambs raised by ewes in the low-energy group, resulting in a worse feed efficiency (P < 0.05). No remarkable changes were observed in carcass traits. We concluded that improving ewe nutrition and consequently the early life nutrition of lambs can really increase profitability of lamb meat production.