Effect of Pre-Weaning Starter on Lamb's Performance

Twenty eight Ossimi new born male lambs, with an average live body weight 4.75 kg and 7 days age were randomly assigned to two feeding groups each of 14 animals to study the effect of pre-weaning diet on lamb's performance. Both the two groups suckled their dams until being weaned at 12 weeks of age (natural weaning). The first group depended completely on dams milk as a solely available feed (control), while the other was supported by a starter ration (13.83% DCP and 81% TDN) besides dams milk from 2-12 weeks old. Lambs separated from their dams before the digestibility trial and fed starter only, had 663g DMI / h/day. The nutritive value of starter was found to be 19.1% CP (14.5% DCP) and 81.0% TDN value, with high digestibility coefficients for different nutrients items. Growth performance data showed similar final live body weight and daily gains 10.5 and 10.0 kg and 100 and 102 g/h/day for both the two reared groups, respectively during their early life (2-8 weeks of age). While lambs in age 9-12 showed higher (P<0.05) gains, being about two times that achieved by the solely milk fed-group 213 vs 101 g/h/day for groups II and I, respectively. Higher feed costs/kg gain (P<0.05) was obtained by T1 (4.5L.E) compared with starter feed (2.76 L.E) due to the higher price of milk (1.6 vs 0.662 LE), respectively.