Great Lakes Dairy Sheep Symposium - the Department of Animal ...
Great Lakes Dairy Sheep Symposium - the Department of Animal ... Great Lakes Dairy Sheep Symposium - the Department of Animal ...
We have transformed ourselves from a farm that simply delivered lambs to the sale yards and held out our hand and said, “How much will you pay me?” into a farm that sells all its own lamb (and the lamb from 2 other farms), that caters to individual client’s needs and tells them, “this is our price.“ Final Thoughts Remember, that farming is the only business where we pay retail, sell wholesale, and pay both incoming and outgoing freight. Make no mistake about it. This has to change if, as individual producers, we ever hope to gain control over the end result on our balance sheets. 90
HOW TO GRAZE DAIRY SHEEP AND SUPPLEMENT THEIR DIETS IN ORDER TO IMPROVE PRODUCTION Giuseppe Pulina 1 , Antonello Cannas 1 , and Marcella Avondo 2 1 Dipartimento di Scienze Zootecniche, Università di Sassari, Italy 2 Dipartimento di Scienze Agronomiche, Agrochimiche e delle Produzioni Animali Università di Catania, Italy Introduction Dairy sheep are most often fed on pasture. In general, feeding dairy sheep involves evaluating their feeding requirements and their intake from grazing, and then calculating what concentrate and hay supplements are needed to cover the deficit. Balancing the diet of grazing animals, in particular lactating ones, is more difficult in certain ways than it is for housed animals. These difficulties include: a) the temporal and spatial variation in nutritive concentration and yield of pasture; b) the feeding behaviour of the sheep; c) the effects of weather conditions (cold/heat, wind, rain) on the animals’ nutritive requirements and herbage intake; d) the photoperiod and daylight intensity; e) the interference of management, principally milking operations, on the grazing routine. However, the ability of the animals to self-balance their diets, to a certain degree, and the lower costs of feeding justify widespread use of pasture in the dairy sheep industry. This publication deals with the use of grazing techniques in high yielding dairy sheep. It points out that high yields and grazing are compatible. It also explains what factors influence herbage intake, how to balance the diets of grazing animals and the best grazing methods to maximise animal yields and stocking rates. Are Grazing Sheep and High Yield Compatible? Despite its apparent simplicity, grazing is a complex system. Modelling a grazing flock is indeed one of the most difficult scientific and technical issues, because of the number and magnitude of factors that influence the system. The response to different situations can be greatly influenced by genetic factors through a series of interactions between breed and production system, as demonstrated in New Zealand cows by Bryant et al. (2005) and in sheep by Mavrogenis (1997). The phenotypic plasticity of genotypes, i.e. the expression of multiple phenotypic states by a single genotype under different environmental conditions, undermines the central dogma of genetics. This assumes that there are no (or only negligible) interactions between genotype and environment deviations on the phenotypic expression of productive traits in dairy animals. The essential assumption in the model proposed by Behera and Nanjundiah (2004) is that a structural gene can be in one of three allelic states. These are: a) ‘on’, b) ‘off’ or c) in a plastic state in which the probability of being ‘on’ or ‘off’ is influenced by regulatory loci in a dosagedependent manner. This implies that in different environmental conditions similar sheep genotypes may result in different productive performances. This can be seen in Table 1, from the 91
- Page 49 and 50: Grossman et al., 1999). Animals wit
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We have transformed ourselves from a farm that simply delivered lambs to <strong>the</strong> sale yards<br />
and held out our hand and said, “How much will you pay me?” into a farm that sells all its own<br />
lamb (and <strong>the</strong> lamb from 2 o<strong>the</strong>r farms), that caters to individual client’s needs and tells <strong>the</strong>m,<br />
“this is our price.“<br />
Final Thoughts<br />
Remember, that farming is <strong>the</strong> only business where we pay retail, sell wholesale, and pay<br />
both incoming and outgoing freight. Make no mistake about it. This has to change if, as<br />
individual producers, we ever hope to gain control over <strong>the</strong> end result on our balance sheets.<br />
90
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