Water intake of red deer stags consuming dryland pasture or indoors on concentrated feed

Abstract

Two trials were conducted to provide data on water intake of red deer stags for a basis on which to determine water requirements for deer farms. In the first trial 13 15-month-old red deer stags had water intake from a trough monitored for 16 days whilst they grazed dryland pasture during a spell of dry weather (March - April 1988) in Canterbury. Intake of pasture was estimated indirectly. Total water intake from troughs was 0.073 l/kgW⁰.⁷⁵/d with intake of water ingested in feed (52 % DM) being ignored due to inaccuracy in actual dry matter intake measurement. Young stags on dry pasture consumed approximately 2.6 l water/d from a trough. In the second trial 12 3- and 4-year-old stags were held indoors in pens and fed (n=6) either pasture silage (25% DM) or pellets (88% DM) in a cross over design with period 1 of 6 weeks duration and period 2 of 4 weeks. Voluntary water intake and DMI were monitored daily for 15 days in period 1 and 14 days in period 2. Total water intake for silage was 0.260 and 0.247 l/kgW⁰.⁷⁵/d in periods 1 and 2, respectively. For pellets total water intake was 0.123 and 0.083 l/kgW⁰.⁷⁵/d in periods 1 and 2 respectively. Intake of pellets was low in period 2. This study also examined the relationship between total water intake and DMI. With the deer fed silage, TWI:DMI ratios of 3.897 l/kgDM for period 1 and 3.404 l/kgDM for period 2 were recorded, whilst the deer fed pellets had a TWI of 3.167 and 2.626 l/kgDM for periods 1 and 2 respectively. The trials presented evidence that deer are more closely related to sheep and goats than cattle with respect to TWI/kgW⁰.⁷⁵.