Sheep nutrition: I. Measurements of the appetites of sheep on typical winter rations, together with a critical study of the sheep-feeding standards

Abstract

Feeding trials with sheep, subsisting out-of-doors on typical winter rations of known dry-matter and starch-equivalent content, have been carried out during the winters of 1933–4, 1934–5 and 1935–6. Records have been kept over these periods of the live-weights of the animals and their daily consumption of dry matter and starch equivalent.It has been found that the standards of appetite, in terms of lb. dry matter, proposed by Prof. T. B. Wood are uniformly too high, a result in harmony with the findings of Prof. J. A. S. Watson and co-workers at Oxford. It is suggested that Prof. Wood's values should be multiplied throughout by the factor 0·85 in order to obtain reasonable measures of the appetites of sheep at different live-weights.The data from the feeding trials have been used in an attempt to decide between the old and the recently proposed standards for the maintenance starch-equivalent requirement of the 100 lb. sheep, namely, 0·74 and 1·26 lb. of starch equivalent per day. The results point to the reliability of the higher figure, and it is shown that the results of recent work on the energy metabolism of sheep are in harmony with this conclusion.A table embodying a revision of Prof. Wood's feeding standards for sheep is included in the paper.