TITLE:
Heat Production Partition in Sheep Fed above Maintenance from Indirect Calorimetry Data
AUTHORS:
Patricia Criscioni, María del Carmen López, Victor Zena, Carlos Fernández
KEYWORDS:
Sheep, Heat Production Partition
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Animal Sciences,
Vol.5 No.2,
March
27,
2015
ABSTRACT: The objective of this study is to compare the partition of heat energy (HE) in two sheep breeds by indirect calorimetry and integral calculus. An experiment was conducted with two Spanish native sheep breeds (dry and non-pregnant) which were fed with pelleted mixed diets above maintenance. Six Guirras and six Manchegas breed sheep were selected (58.8 ± 3.1 and 60.2 ± 3.2 kg body weight, respectively). All sheep were fed with the same concentrate mixed ration (0.300 kg cereal straw as forage and 0.700 kg concentrate) in two meals. Half the daily ration was offered at 800 h and another half at 1600 h. The sheep had free access to water. Sheep were allocated in metabolic cages; energy balance and gas exchange were assessed in each sheep. The statistical analyses included the fixed effect of breed and random effect of sheep. The metabolic energy (ME) for maintenance represented 69% of the total ME intake and the average was 354 kJ per kg of metabolic body weight (kg0.75 BW) on average. The basal metabolism (HeE) was greater (P