Antoinette Danso

Citation

Thesis Title
Nutrient utilisation, growth and chemical body composition of pre-weaned lambs reared artificially: Effects of feeding milk replacer and pellets

Read article at Massey Research Online:

Understanding how nutrient supply controls lamb growth is important in improving the efficiency of nutrient utilisation. Estimation of protein and energy requirements for maintenance and growth in pre-weaned lambs has been limited to milk-only fed lambs. This is partly due to the difficulty of measuring feed intake in pre-weaned lambs under grazing conditions, thus restricting the determination of nutrient balances and nutrient use efficiencies. Ms Danso examined the effect of various milk and pellets dietary combinations on growth, chemical body composition and nutrient utilisation for maintenance and growth in artificially reared lambs. She derived equations for predicting feed intake in pre-weaned lambs and also developed a growth simulation model for use as a tool to develop feeding strategies for lambs. Her results provide new information relevant to the commercial sheep industry and will serve as a platform for future studies aiming to develop feeding strategies to improve pre-weaning lamb growth.

Supervisors
Professor Patrick Morel
Professor Hugh Blair
Professor Paul Kenyon