Effect of Automatic Feeding Station use on fattening performance in lambs and intake activity periods
Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, Faculty of Agriculture, Institute of Agrobiotechnology, Liela street 2, LV-3001 Jelgava, Latvia
*Correspondence: shenfeldel@gmail.com
Abstract:
Implementation of precise farming technology is very important for productivity increasing of livestock. One of the highest components of the production costs is feeding expenses. An automatic concentrate feeding stations (AFS) can ensure economic feed distribution and intake registration for animals individually. The aim of this research was to study the possibility and benefits of using AFS in fattening of lambs. Results show that during all the research average number of daily visits to AFS per lamb were 13 ± 0.2 visits, average daily live weight gain per lamb was 254 ± 15.7 g. For 1 kg lamb live weight gain 5.35 kg concentrate was used. More intesively acitivity periods of lambs was noted during following hours of day time: 02:00–02:59, 08:00–09:59 and 19:00–20:59. Significant (P ≤ 0.05) moderate positive correlation (r = 0.470) was found between average daily number of visits to the AFS per lamb and total amount of concentrate consumed during the research per lamb. Significant (P ≤ 0.05) strong negative correlation (r = -0.806) was found between average daily number of visits to the AFS per lamb and average amount of concentrate consumed during one visit.
Key words:
feed intake, feeding station, live weight gain, sheep