Milk replacer for lambs and kids

Background

One of the major concerns in sheep and goat meat production is the lower body weight gains in lambs/kids during pre-weaning phase (first 90-100 days). The low plane of nutrition during the early phase of growth in lambs/kids reduces the immunity, increases the susceptibility to diseases resulting in lower body weight gains and high mortality. Low plane of nutrition is mainly due to limited availability of milk as our breeds have very limited ability to produce sufficient milk to promote optimum growth in lambs and kids. This is truer in animals having twins and triplets, where dams must support two or three newborns simultaneously. Under field conditions even the limited ability to produce milk is not fully realized due to low plane of nutrition of the nursing animals. This is further confounded by the limited ability of the lamb and kids to feed and digest solid feeds during the first 60-80 days due to the underdeveloped digestive system.  All these factors contribute to the low plane of nutrition in lambs and kids leading to poor health, susceptibility to diseases, low weight gains and mortality in extreme cases.

Technology Description:

Supplementary feeding through milk replacer in lambs and kids can address these multiple issues ensuring optimum weight gain and health.  Milk replacer is a special feed containing quality ingredients that are highly digestible and designed for supporting the nutritional needs of young nursing lambsand kids in achieving optimum growth and health. Multiple studies on use of milk replacer during pre-weaning phase (first 90-100 days) on research farm at NIANP, Bangalore, farmers field in Tumkur district and to various end users across eight states of India had showed the effectiveness of the milk replacer in promoting the health and growth in lambs.