Effect of concentrate feed supplementation during different physiological stages in Madras Red Sheep

This study was undertaken to assess the performance of Madras Red sheep fed concentrate feed at different physiological stages such as prior to breeding (14 days), late gestation (last 42 days) and early lactation (first 60 days) and compounded feed for growing lambs up to 120 days of age. The study was conducted at Postgraduate Research Institute in Animal Sciences, Kattupakkam, Tamil Nadu. In this, sixty ewes were selected in the age group of 3 to 5 years and divided into three groups with twenty in each group. The first group was allowed for grazing for seven hours daily from 9.00 A.M to 4.00 P.M and served as control group (G₁).The second and third group (G₂ and G ₃) of animals were supplemented with concentrate feed @ 10% and 20% of their daily dry matter requirement, respectively. The result indicates that the supplementation of concentrate feed to sheep significantly (p<0.05) improved the production and reproduction performance of sheep in terms of body weight gain during late pregnancy and early lactation, conception rate, lambing percentage, birth weight and ADG of lambs in group (G₃) when compared to concentrate feed supplementation @ 10% of drymatter requirement (G₂) or nonsupplemented groups (G¹). It is concluded that the net profit available per ewe was more in G³ followed by G² and G¹ groups.