Effect of long-term supplementation on animal performance of grazing ewes

Abstract

Feeding management in grazing systems usually involves supplementary feeding during critical periods to increase the intake and prevent high losses of body reserves (Gunn et al., 1992; Castro et al., 1994). However, in grazing systems the response to additional fed can be erratic or inconsistent at medium or long terms. Therefore it is necessary a better understanding of the effects of supplementation to define feeding strategies. The present experiment was designed to examine the effect of supplementation of grazing ewes during two consecutive production cycles on animal performance.