Some factors affecting the maintenance requirement of sheep : A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Agricultural Science with Honours in the University of Canterbury [Lincoln College]

Abstract

In recent years there has been considerable dissatisfaction in various parts of the world with existing feed units and feeding standards for sheep and cattle nutrition. This applies specifically to sheep fed at maintenance for a considerable part of the year which is the standard husbandry practise in pastoral countries. Intimately associated with the problem has been the development of various techniques for the indirect measurement of feed intake be grazing animals. Although some workers have shown that a grazing sheep requires a substantially higher energy intake for maintenance than a pen fed animal, little is known about the relative effects that the postulated influencing effects of climate, movement, harvesting and hormone imbalance do in fact produce. It was a major aim of this work to attempt to estimate the magnitude of these components.