Abstract
Data of the current stud, were collected on 32 Iraqi native sheep aged 2-5 years maintained on commercial flock. At lambing, the 32 ewes were divided into two equal groups, lambs in the 1st group were left with their dams till weaning and then were milked twice daily till they dry off (Continuous), whereas the 2nd group, lambs were separated at night for 12 hr. and the ewes were milked once daily at morning (Restricted). Then each main group was subdivided into two group to be weaned their lambs when they reached 3 or 4 times of their birth weight (WB1 and WB2). Results revealed that ewes of restricted suckling produced significantly (P < 0.05) more post weaning (80.80 vs.49.44 L), total milk yield (135.01 vs. 109.94 L) and sealable milk (99.86 vs. 49.44 L) and had significantly longer lactation period (169.3 vs. 140.2 days) compared ewes in continuous suckling. Also, results obtained indicate that daily gain in weight averaged 0.23 kg from birth to weaning and from birth to marketing and 0.24 kg from weaning to marketing and neither suckling system nor weaning weight affected these trait significantly. It can be concluded that restricted suckling resulted in an increase in sealable milk without any adverse effect on growth of lambs.
Highlights
In sheep, lactation is the most important function because the ewe remain an important dairy animal, but because efficient lactation is the foundation for good lamb performance necessary in any system of production [22]
It has been indicated that early weaning associated with restricted suckling gave higher marketable milk without causing a negative impact on the growth of lambs and provide economic benefits to the farmer [6,13,16,17,19].Since there is a lack of information on the effect of different suckling regime and weaning system on lactation performance and growth of lambs in native sheep, this study aimed to compare commercial milk during lactation and lamb growth traits under two different system of suckling and weaning weight in native Iraqi sheep
Results revealed that the overall means of preweaning, post-weaning, total, and commercial milk yield averaged 57.25 ± 3.22, 65.66 ± 6.63, 122.91 ±7.56 and 75.52 ± 7.72 L, respectively
Summary
Lactation is the most important function because the ewe remain an important dairy animal, but because efficient lactation is the foundation for good lamb performance necessary in any system of production [22]. It has been indicated that early weaning associated with restricted suckling gave higher marketable milk without causing a negative impact on the growth of lambs and provide economic benefits to the farmer [6,13,16,17,19].Since there is a lack of information on the effect of different suckling regime and weaning system on lactation performance and growth of lambs in native sheep, this study aimed to compare commercial milk during lactation and lamb growth traits under two different system of suckling and weaning weight in native Iraqi sheep. Animals and management At 15-days post- lambing, the ewes were divided into two equal groups, lambs in the 1th group were left with their dams till weaning except where milk was recorded at weekly interval and were milked twice daily till they dry off (Continuous), whereas the 2nd group, lambs were separated at night for 12 hr. Since the interaction of all studied traits was not significant, the interaction was excluded from the results
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