Offered Papers Theme A: Efficient Production from Grassland
Description
New opportunities for developing optimum ewe management systems, based on achieving liveweight and body condition score (CS) targets at critical stages of the reproductive cycle, have emerged from the acceptance that nutrition during pregnancy can have substantial impacts on the lifetime wool performance of the progeny (Kelly et al,. 1996). However, most studies of the impacts of nutrition on foetal growth and development tended to focus on late pregnancy and have also only considered extreme nutritional regimes often outside the boundaries of commercial reality. Hence, the Lifetime Wool team (Thompson & Oldham, 2004) conducted dose-response experiments to determine the levels of feed-on-offer (FOO; kg dry matter/ha; Hyder et al., 2004) needed at different stages of the reproductive cycle to optimise both wool and meat production per ha in the short term and the lifetime performance of the progeny in the long term. This paper reports the response in the first two years of the experiment of clean fleece weight (CFW) and fibre diameter (FD) of the progeny as adults to the level of FOO available to their mother in late pregnancy and lactation.
Citation
Oldham, Chris; Ferguson, M.; Paganoni, B.; Thompson, A.; Kearney, G.; and van Burgel, M. A., "The Impact of the Level of Feed-On-Offer Available to Merino Ewes During Winter-Spring on the Wool Production of Their Progeny as Adults" (2023). IGC Proceedings (1993-2023). 6.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/igc/20/themeA/6
Included in
Agricultural Science Commons, Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons, Plant Biology Commons, Plant Pathology Commons, Soil Science Commons, Weed Science Commons
The Impact of the Level of Feed-On-Offer Available to Merino Ewes During Winter-Spring on the Wool Production of Their Progeny as Adults
New opportunities for developing optimum ewe management systems, based on achieving liveweight and body condition score (CS) targets at critical stages of the reproductive cycle, have emerged from the acceptance that nutrition during pregnancy can have substantial impacts on the lifetime wool performance of the progeny (Kelly et al,. 1996). However, most studies of the impacts of nutrition on foetal growth and development tended to focus on late pregnancy and have also only considered extreme nutritional regimes often outside the boundaries of commercial reality. Hence, the Lifetime Wool team (Thompson & Oldham, 2004) conducted dose-response experiments to determine the levels of feed-on-offer (FOO; kg dry matter/ha; Hyder et al., 2004) needed at different stages of the reproductive cycle to optimise both wool and meat production per ha in the short term and the lifetime performance of the progeny in the long term. This paper reports the response in the first two years of the experiment of clean fleece weight (CFW) and fibre diameter (FD) of the progeny as adults to the level of FOO available to their mother in late pregnancy and lactation.
