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Offering barley straw to lambs near weaning as a means of increasing their subsequent readiness to eat straw

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2017

F.N.A. Odoi  and
E. Owen
F.N.A. Odoi
Affiliation:
Department of Agriculture, University of Reading, Earley Gate, P.O. Box 236, Reading, RG6 2AT
E. Owen
Affiliation:
Department of Agriculture, University of Reading, Earley Gate, P.O. Box 236, Reading, RG6 2AT
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Extract

Sheep housed after grazing and offered straw as a feed show reluctance to eat for several days. Evidence exists to indicate that eating habits can be manipulated through a learning process, especially if manipulation occurs pre-weaning. Australian research by Arnold and Mailer (1977) with unpalatable pastures, and Green, Elwin, Mottershead, Keogh and Lynch (1984) with whole cereal grain, showed that sheep exposed to these feeds early in life were more willing to accept the feeds later in life than others not exposed.

The present experiment investigated whether this observation was applicable to lambs exposed to a poor quality roughage like barley straw.

Type
Sheep
Information
Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Production (1972) , Volume 1992 , March 1992 , pp. 169
Copyright
Copyright © The British Society of Animal Production 1992

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References

Arnold, G W, and Mailer, R A, 1977. Effects of nutritional experience in early and adult life on the performance and dietary habits of sheep. Applied Animal Ethology, 3 : 5–26 Google Scholar
Green, G C, Elwin, R L, Mottershead, B E, Keogh, R G and Lynch, J J, 1984. Long term effects of early experience to supplemental feeding in sheep. Proceedings of the Australian Society of Animal Production, 15 : 373–375 Google Scholar