Supplementary feeding of young Merino sheep, grazing wheat stubble, with different amounts of lupin, oats or barley grain [liveweight gains;fleece weight]
1989
Rowe, J.B. | Ralph, I.G. (Western Australian Dept. of Agriculture, Perth. Sheep and Wool Branch) | Wallace, J.F. (Western Australian Dept. of Agriculture, Perth. Biometrics) | Brown, G. (Western Australian Dept. of Agriculture, Moora) | Ferguson, J. (Western Australian Dept. of Agriculture, Wongan Hills Research Station)
The liveweight of the supplemented animals increased in relation to the amount of each supplement given. The conversion (kg supplement fed per kg liveweight gain), was 3.64 for lupins compared with 4.93 and 5.21 for the oats and barley respectively. There was an increase in the clean fleece weight with increasing levels of each supplement, but there were no differences associated with the type of grain. As the level of supplement intake increased from 0 to 750g per day, fibre diameter increased from 18.6 to 21.1 microm., staple length increased from 73.5 to 86.7mm and staple breaking force increased from 17.4 to 26.1N per ktex. There was no effect of type of supplement on parameters of wool quality. With all supplements there was an apparent carry-over effect of the summer-autumn feeding on wool growth during the winter period. For each additional 1g of wool grown during the supplementary feeding period, approximately 1.4g were measured in the final fleece weight.
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