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Finishing Performance of Hill Lambs Fed Clover-Rich Baled Silage to Ukrofs Standards

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2017

R Keatinge  and
W A Murray
R Keatinge
Affiliation:
ADAS Redesdale, Rochester, Otterburn, Newcastle upon Tyne NE19 1SB
W A Murray
Affiliation:
ADAS Redesdale, Rochester, Otterburn, Newcastle upon Tyne NE19 1SB
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Extract

Within conventional silage finishing systems, forage quality is critical to lamb performance and some concentrate feeding is generally required (Fitzgerald, 1987). Rate of finish may also be manipulated by increasing the concentrate component of the diet, particularly in the latter stages of the finishing period. For organic production however, the United Kingdom Register of Organic Food Standards (UKROFS) limit concentrate supplementation to 40% of daily dry matter intake, and a flatter pattern of concentrate allocation is generally required. Where diets containing a high proportion of clover (more likely under an organic or low nitrogen system) are fed, improvements in lamb performance have been shown in grazing animals (Clark, 1988) and following ensiling (Vipond et al, 1992). The aim of this experiment was to assess the potential of high clover silage to finish hill lambs from the organic unit at ADAS Redesdale.

One hundred and forty four approximately six month old Scottish Blackface wether lambs (mean liveweight 30.0 kg, se = 0.24) were housed off silage aftermath and assigned (in pens of twelve) to one of three treatments - grass silage plus 400 g concentrate (GH), high clover silage plus 400 g concentrate (CH) or high clover silage plus 200 g of mineralised barley (CL).

Type
Silage
Information
Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Production (1972) , Volume 1994 , March 1994 , pp. 130
Copyright
Copyright © The British Society of Animal Production 1994

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References

Clark, H., (1988). Beef and Sheep output from grass/white clover swards. In: The grassland debate: white clover versus applied nitrogen. ADAS/RASE Conference, Stoneleigh.Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, J.J., (1987). Finishing of store lambs on silage-based diets Ir.J. Agric. Res. 26: 153–164.Google Scholar
Vipond, J.E., Anderson, D.H. and Horgan, G., (1992). Effects of fishmeal supplementation of baled grass and clover silages fed ad libitum to lambs. Anim. Prod. 54: 491 (Abstr).Google Scholar