Variation in the wheat intake of individual sheep measured by use of labelled grain: behavioural influences

Abstract

A preliminary experiment with sheep in pens demonstrated that wheat grain could be labelled with tritiated water so that when fed it could provide data that would allow accurate calculation of individual feed consumption. This techinque was used with two groups of sheep fed supplementary wheat grain in paddocks. Half of the animals had previous experience of grain feeding some eight months earlier and the others had not eaten grain. Individual diversity of intake could be estimated usefully by tritium labelling of wheat, which was fed to the sheep in a group. The experiment showed that there was a threefold difference in the amount of wheat eaten between the lowest and highest intakes. Further, animals with previous experience of grain feeding consumed the entire ration initially, but those without previous experience did not consume all of the ration until two weeks after wheat feeding began. Over the period of measurement the experienced sheep consumed about 13% more wheat than the non-experienced group. There were insufficient aggressive acts to establish a dominance hierarchy in either group, although the experienced sheep were more aggressive than the others. Aggressiveness by one sheep towards other sheep did not result in higher wheat intakes by the former compared with other sheep in the group. The results are discussed in terms of the variability in acceptance of such supplements by animals, and of the value, later in life, of early introduction of supplementary feeding.