FEEDS AND FEEDING METHODS FOR ASSEMBLY OF SHEEP BEFORE EXPORT

Sheep are assembled in Australian feedlots before export and given tim e to adapt to the pelleted diet they will receive on board ship. In We stern Australia, lupins are normally included in the diet at levels up to 30% as a source of digestible energy which is low in starch. It is also common to feed hay during assembly. We examine the use of pellet s based on barley and containing either lupins or virginiamycin to ove rcome problems of acidosis, and the importance of hay during assembly. There were 9 dietary treatments each with 3 pens of 30 sheep. The stu dy was conducted over 8 days simulating assembly feedlot conditions. M easurements were made of numbers of sheep visiting troughts (paint-mar king technique) and accumulation of lactic acid in the rumen. 'Barley' pellets were formulated with 33% barley, 18% oats, 47% hay/straw and 2% minerals and vitamins. Replacing about half of the barley with lupi ns resulted in more sheep paint-marked on days 3-6 (P<0.05) and higher levels of feed intake on days 4-8 (P<0.001) than feeding pellets with out lupins. The inclusion of lupins was also associated with a less pr onounced drop in feed intake on day 4 than measured in sheep fed barle y pellets alone. Adding virginiamycin at 40 g/t to the basal barley-ba sed pellet also significantly increased the numbers of sheep paint-mar ked. Virginiamycin appeared to have a similar effect to the inclusion of lupins in terms of reducing the number of sheep which were not pain t-marked. Sprinkling a small quantity of lucerne chaff onto the pellet s had no effect on feeding behaviour. The use of hay in racks resulted in fewer sheep (3 v. 12%, P<0.05) not eating during the first 3 days but there was no significant effect thereafter. We concluded that the inclusion of either lupins or virginiamycin is effective in improving the adaptation to cereal-based pellets in export feedlots. The use of hay either in racks or sprinkled over the pellets appears to be of lim ited value.