Applied Animal Nutrition-I

INTRODUCTION

• Sheep rearing plays an important role in livelihood of large percentage of small and marginal farmers and landless labourers especially in arid, semi arid and hilly regions of India, where crop farming is difficult and where naturally available feed resources are scarce.
• Sheep in India are mostly maintained on natural vegetation and rarely on concentrates and cultivated fodders.The annual growth rate of 2.0% for sheep is recorded in India.
• There are 40 breeds of sheep in India (Decanni, Nellore, Mandya, Madras Red, Muzaffarnagari,Marwari,Gaddi, Meicheri etc).
• Exotic breeds of sheep are used for cross-breeding of local sheep to improve mutton production potential were Dorset and Suffolk and for wool production were Merino,etc.

• The present sheep population in India is about 55 million.

• The sheep are reared mostly for wool and meat however sheep skins and manure are also obtained from sheep.

• Hence to obtain more wool from sheep, care should be taken regarding their balanced feeding on a scientific line.

Comparitive feeding behaviour and digestive physiology in goats and sheep. (Devendra,1989) .

S.No.	Characteristics	Goats	Sheep
1	Activity	Bipedal stance and walk longer distances	Walk shorter distances
2	Feeding pattern	Browser, more selective	Grazer,less selective
3	Browse and tree leaves	Relished	Less relished
4	Variety in feeds	Preference greater	Preference lesser
5	Taste sensation	More discerning	Less discerning
6	Salivary secretion rate	Greater	Lesser
7	Recycling of urea in saliva	Greater	Lesser
8	Dry matter Intake for meat	3% of body weight	3% of body weight
9	Dry matter Intake for lactation	4 - 6 % of body weight	3% of body weight
10	Digestive efficiency with coarse roughages	Higher	Less efficient
11	Retention time	Longer	Shorter
12	Water Intake /Unit Dry matter Intake	Lower	Higher
13	Rumen ammonia concentration	Higher	Less efficient
14	Water economy Water turnover rate Nature of faeces Nature of urine	More efficient Lower Less water More concentrated	Less efficient Higher Relatively higher Less concentrated