Grazing of barley stubble by sheep in Syria: effects of stocking rate and supplementation on selective intake of stubble fractions

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Stubble grazing is the main source of nutrients for small ruminants in the Middle Bast for 3-5 months after cereal harvesting in late May or June. As the flocks are usually mated during this period, poor nutrition may affect the prolificacy of the flocks and limit the productivity of the system for the rest of the year. There have been few studies of the process of grazing stubble that have defined the nutrient intakes and the effects of supplementation. At last years's Winter Meeting, we described the patterns of removal of stubble fractions and the intakes of nutrients by unsupplemented sheep at three stocking rates Rihawi et al, (1993). The second experiment of the series was carried out from June to September 1992, using a 2 x 3 factorial design to examine the removal of different stubble fractions from areas of stubble grazed at stocking rates (SR) of 20 and 40 ewes/ha for 3 successive periods of 28 days, during which the ewes were fed either 200 g of cotton seed cake (C), which supplied 1.68 MJ of metabolisable energy (ME) and 73 g of crude protein (cp), or 200 g of barley (B) daily, which supplied 2.36 MJ of ME and 22 g of cp, or were given no supplement (U). The treatments were replicated three times by using three successive measurement periods.