Effects of feeding straw emergency feed to sheep under extreme conditions in a pastoral area

This study investigated the effects on Gansu alpine fine-wool sheep when they were fed wheat straw type and corn straw type full-price granular feed as emergency feed during the livestock forage vacancy period. These feeds may affect the growth and development of the sheep when they are growing under the special climatic conditions found in alpine pastures. We selected 48 six-month-old growing Gansu alpine fine-wool sheep with similar body conditions. They were randomly divided into two experimental groups. These were experimental group Ⅰ (18 sheep, only fed wheat straw type full-price granular feed) and experimental group Ⅱ (17 sheep, only fed corn straw type full-price granular feed). Each sheep was fed 1.2 kg of feed per day in the two test groups. There was also a control group (13 sheep) where the sheep were fed oat grass and corn (Each sheep was fed 0.05 kg corn and 0.2 kg oat grass per day). The feeding trials lasted 16 days under house-feeding conditions. The results showed that the average daily test group Ⅱ weight gain was significantly higher than the weight gain recorded in the control group (P < 0.05). The total protein and globulin concentrations in the serum from test group Ⅱ were also significantly higher than in the control group serum (P < 0.05). The aspartate aminotransferase and lactate dehydrogenase activities, and the albumin concentration in the serum from test group Ⅰ were significantly higher than in the control group serum (P < 0.05), but there were no differences between the test group Ⅱ and the control group (P > 0.05). The results showed using corn straw type full-price granular feed as the emergency feed produced better results than the traditional oat grass and whole-grain corn feed. The results also showed that the corn straw full price feed fully satisfied the nutritional needs of growing Gansu alpine fine-wool ewes during the growth and development period in the alpine pastures areas of Sunan, especially when there were forage vacancies and insufficiency periods.