This trial was conducted to study the effects of pre and postnatal feed restriction on growth and production of Santa Inês lambs from birth to weaning. Sixty-eight lambs were assigned to three treatments as follows: prenatal feed restriction (PRER), postnatal feed restriction (POSTR), and no feed restriction (Control). Average birth body weight of lambs on Control (4.628 kg) and POSTR (4.421 kg) treatments were similar but higher than that of animals on PRER (3.024 kg). Milk replacer intake averaged 1.308, 0.957, and 0.952 L/d on Control, POSTR, and PRER treatments, respectively. The lower intake of feed-restricted lambs may be explained by the imposed restriction on POSTR animals and the lower size of the gastrointestinal tract of lambs on PRER group. Daily weight gain during the milking period averaged 200, 162, and 153 g/d for Control, PRER, and POSTR, respectively. The greater daily weight gain of animals with no feed restriction led to higher body weight at weaning (17.12 kg) compared to POSTR (14.15 kg) and PRER (13.00 kg) treatments. Lower production of lambs on PRER compared to Control treatment indicated that PRER animals were not able to compensate the imposed restriction compromising postnatal growth, which resulted in lower body weight at weaning.
feed restriction; postnatal nutrition; prenatal nutrition; sheep
