Comparison of hay and silage for pregnant and lactating Finnish Landrace ewes

A comparison of conserving timothy/meadow fescue/meadow grass as silage or hay was conducted with Finnish Landrace ewes. Intake of hay (l-l), silage ( S) and hay/silage (IIS), and the performance of 30 Finnish Landrace ewes ca rrying twins, triplets and quadruplets and suckling either twin or triplet lambs was measured during the last 8 weeks of pregnancy and during the firs t 6 weeks of lactation. The dry matter (DM) intake of IIS was lower (p < 0. 03) than H during lactation, whereas there was no difference in DM intake b etween pregnant and lactating ewes fed either H or S. The intake of metabol isable energy was on an average 12.8, 14.3 and 13.4 MJ per day in pregnancy , and 17.7, 20.2 and 18.1 MJ in lactation for H, S and HS, respectively. Da ily intakes of protein assessed in terms of amino acids absorbed in the sma ll intestine (AAT) were on an average 92, 110 and 102 g for H, S and HS dur ing pregnancy and 157, 183 and 165 g during lactation, respectively Ewes in all treatments were, relative to calculated requirements, deficient in ene rgy and protein during the last month of pregnancy and early lactation. Ewe s performed consistently better when fed silage than hay. Lamb mortality wa s low for all treatments. The number. of artificially reared lambs tended t o be highest when ewes were fed both hay and silage ad libitum. Lamb growth was higher on S than II based diet (p < 0.005). With respect to winter fee ding of ewes, grass silage compared favourably with hay and indicated that hay could be replaced by well preserved grass silage. During late pregnancy and early lactation, there was no advantage of supplementing silage with h ay, relative to entirely silage based diets. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.