Carol J. Elkins
Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:23:41 -0800
Barb, what adjustment, if any, have you made to your nutritional formulas to account for the weight-at-age factor? In other words, a 100-lb pregnant blackbelly will most likely be around 1.5 to 2 years old. A 100-lb wooled sheep is generally a 5-6 month lamb. The nutritional needs and capacities of a lamb will be different, I would think, than a pregnant adult ewe. Whether feeding lambs, chicks, or teenagers, they all seem to everything in sight. Perhaps the reason why a blackbelly can eat only 75% of the food consumed by a wooled sheep is simply that blackbelly sheep are 25%-50% smaller than wooled sheep at ANY age of their lives. It would be interesting to look at what percentage of total body weight a sheep's consumption is. I'd be willing to bet that the blackbelly consumes a similar percentage of food relative to its weight than a wooled sheep does, irrespective of age. Can you extract that data from your research? Carol At 10:55 AM 1/14/2008, you wrote: >...the sheep seem to be only capable of ingesting about 75% of the >dry matter recommended on the NRC tables at any stage of life. >I find on a daily basis that the animals typically eat far less than >the NRC dry matter intake. (Please note that based on calculations >of about 24% dry matter in my medium quality - no legumes -spring >grass, a 100 pound, pregnant blackbelly would have to ingest close >to 29 pounds of fresh grass per day to meet NRC nutritional recommendations.) _______________________________________________ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info