Re: [Blackbelly] Feeding Trivia

[Cecil Bearden]

After I have watched 60 of my "girls" devour 2 round bales of grassy 
alfalfa in 3 days, I would bet that a blackbelly may eat only 75% of 
what a wooled sheep will eat, but that is 1.5 times the feed to weight 
ratio. LOL

Cecil in OKla

Carol J. Elkins wrote:
> 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.)
> 
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