A model has been developed to predict the true metabolizable energy (ME,) concentration in forages given to ruminants.

The chemical description of forages is based on the concentrations of ash, crude protein, ether extract, sugars and α-glycans, β-glycans and lignin, volatile fatty acids and lactic acid. The model assumes complete fermentation of sugars, α-glycans and lactic acid. The extent of fermentation of β-glycans and crude protein is determined in part by rumen solid-phase outflow rate, which can itself be predicted from dry-matter intake.

The model was tested using 121 graminaceous forages whose chemical composition and concentration of metabolizable energy had been measured in the Feedingstuffs Evaluation Unit at the Rowett Research Institute. The agreement between observed and predicted ME, for all classes of forage was nearly always as good as, or better than, the best prediction from single attributes of food chemistry which could only be determined retrospectively and were not consistent even within classes of forage. The model predicts a decline in ME, with increasing rumen solid-phase outflow rate which is determined mainly by the extent of fermentation of β-glycans.

Two groups of nine British Friesian cows were fed from about 32 weeks before calving to achieve condition scores at calving of 2·5 (thin) and 4 (fat). For 10 weeks after calving all cows were offered 7 kg hay daily in four feeds, with concentrates given five times daily according to appetite.

During early lactation, the group of fat cows had lower dry-matter intakes and daily milk yields and yielded less milk protein and lactose than the group of thin cows. The mean yield of milk over the whole lactation was 500 kg less in the fat cows but the difference was not significant. The fat cows lost 48 kg body weight and 1·20 units condition score during early lactation compared with 27 kg body weight and 0·52 units condition score in the thin cows. No difference in reproductive performance was found between the two groups but significantly more cases of disease occurred in the fat cows than in the thin cows.

It is concluded that cows that are fat at calving eat less than thin cows, give the same or less milk than thin cows, mobolize more body tissue and lose more weight after calving than thin cows and suffer more disease.

Twenty-four lactating British Friesian cows were used in a four-period partially balanced change-over design experiment to evaluate eight treatments consisting of two silage types (wilted and unwilted), each offered in addition to supplements containing both two crude protein (CP) levels (160 and 210 g/kg fresh weight) and two energy levels (10·8 and 12·9 MJ metabolizable energy (ME) per kg fresh weight) obtained by including 100 g spray-dried tallow per kg, in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial arrangement. All supplements were offered at ttie same rate of 6·8 kg/day and total diet digestibility and food utilization studies were carried out on all animals at the end of the final period of the experiment. A separate two-period change-over design expeximent, using two lactating cows fitted with rumen cannulae, was undertaken to determine the influence of the two silages on volatile fatty acid (VFA) proportions in the rumen and to measure the rates of disappearance of dry matter (DM) and nitrogen in the silages and supplements from the rumen.

There were no significant interactions between silage and supplement type in terms of animal performance. Animals offered unwilted silage consumed proportionately 003 less DM but produced 0·03 more milk than those offered wilted silage. Although total diet digestibility was not influenced by silage type because of the higher gross energy concentration of the unwilted silage the ME intake with this diet was higher than with the diet based on wilted silage and the ratios of milk energy output to ME available for production (0·54) were similar with both silages. Silage type had no effect on the rumen VFA proportions but influenced the jates of disappearance of DM and nitrogen from the rumen.

Increasing the CP concentratioryof the supplement had no effect on the intake of silage DM but resulted in a significant incrase in milk yield (0·55 kg/day) but due to a reduction in milk fat concentration there was np etfect on yield of either fat-corrected milk or milk energy. The use of the higher energy supplement depressed the intake of silage DM by 0·46 kg/day but resulted in an increase in milk yield of 0·74 kg/day. Neither CP nor energy concentration of the supplement had any effect on DM or energy digestibility of the total diet but there were considerable differences between supplements in the patterns of nitrogen and DM disappearance from the rumen.

Thirty-four British Friesian bull calves were used in experiments to identify diurnal patterns of respiratory quotient (RQ), as an indicator of substrate utilization and to measure energy balance when the same daily amount of milk replacer was given on either 1, 2, 4 or 6 occasions. Each calf spent two 4-day periods in an open-circuit respiration chamber followed immediately, in selected calves, by an 8-day period in a metabolism crate, period 1 starting when calves were 12 days of age and period 2 at 28 days of age. The amount of milk replacer given daily was 32 and 48 g/kg M0·75 during periods 1 and 2 respectively.

Neither rate of live-weight gain nor the energy balance of the calves was affected by frequency of feeding. However, raising the frequency of feeding from one to four times daily significantly affected the pattern of RQ. Reduced feeding frequency tended to raise the mean maximum and lower the mean minimum values of RQ; reducing the frequency of feeding significantly increased the range in RQ (F < 0·01).

The apparent dry-matter digestibility of the milk replacer was higher in 36-day-old than in 20-day-old calves (0·93 v. 0·88; s.e.d. 0·011, P < 0·01). The effect was mainly due to an increase in the digestibility of fat (0·82 v. 0·73; s.e.d. 0·019). In 20-day-old calves, there was a linear increase in fat digestibility with increased frequency of feeding (P < 0·01) rising from 0·67 in calves given milk once daily to 0·85 when milk was given in six meals.

The results suggest that calves given milk replacer once daily (at a level of intake of 32 rising to 48 g milk powder per kg M0·75) do not pass through a diurnal period of severe nutrient deprivation and that raising frequency of feeding would do little to improve efficiency of energy utilization.

An experiment was carried out with 20 male veal calves to study differences in energy metabolism between pure Dutch Friesian and Holstein Friesian crossbred calves, containing a high proportion of Holstein Friesian genes (0·79). Two metabolizable energy (ME) intakes were given. The effects of genotype and ME intake on live-weight gain and its fat and protein composition were measured by indirect calorimetry and by the total collection of faeces and urine. Energy and nitrogen balances were measured for each calf during the last 5 weeks of the fattening period of 22 weeks.

The difference in live-weight gain between the Holstein Friesian crossbreds and the Dutch Friesian calves was not significant but small differences in protein and fat composition of live-weight gain were found. Fat gain was closely related to ME intake (r = 0·95), but the correlation coefficient between ME intake and protein gain was only 0-36. Live-weight gain had a high correlation with protein gain (r = 0·70) but a lower correlation with fat gain (r = 0·29).

Veal calves at the end of the fattening period had a declining protein gain as age increased. Calves given a high ME intake (> 2 × maintenance) may require diets containing less than 216 g crude protein per kg diet at the end of the fattening period.

The study indicates that Holstein Friesian crossbred veal calves and Dutch Friesian veal calves have similar ME requirements.

An experiment was performed with two groups of nine British Friesian cows to compare the effect of calving in fat or thin condition on (1) the mobilization and functional activity of subcutaneous adipose tissue, (2) the mobilization of skeletal muscle, (3) the development and resolution of fatty infiltration of the liver and (4) the chemistry and haematology of blood. Sampling was performed at various times during the dry period and subsequent lactation. There were no differences between groups in the amount of adipose tissue mobilized between 4 weeks before and 26 weeks after calving. The lipogenic and lipolytic capacities of isolated adipocytes were also not different between groups at any time although major changes occurred in both over the calving period and during early lactation. Acetate oxidation to carbon dioxide was higher in adipocytes isolated from thin cows particularly after calving. More muscle fibre area was lost in the fat cows compared with the thin cows between 4 weeks before and 4 weeks after calving and the fat cows had greater infiltration of fat in the liver at 1 and 4 weeks after calving than the thin cows. The mean white-cell count was lower and the packed-cell volume was higher in the fat cows than in the thin cows at 1 week after calving. The major differences between groups in blood composition were increased concentrations of copper, non-esterified fatty acids, bilirubin and enzymes such as ornithine carbamyl transferase in the fat cows after calving. These results suggest that fat and thin cows respond differently to the metabolic demands of early lactation and that some of these differences render fat cows more susceptible to disease.

Two feeding trails were made and in both all the diets given contained about 11 MJ metabolizable energy (ME) per kg dry matter (DM).

In trial 1, diets containing three concentrations of crude protein (CP) were given to a total of 84 Friesian bulls in each of three stages of growth. They were, in stage 1 (150 to 250 kg live weight) 130, 145 and 160 g CP per kg dietary DM; in stage 2 (250 to 350 kg live weight) 110, 130 and 145 g CP per kg dietary DM; in stage 3 (350 kg to slaughter) 95, 110 and 130 g CP per kg dietary DM. In stages 2 and 3, the source of supplementary nitrogen at each CP concentration was either soya-bean meal or non-protein nitrogen (NPN) giving six combinations of concentration and source of dietary CP. Live-weight gains in stage 1 were 1·52, 1·60 and 1·58 kg/day respectively (P > 0·05). In the stages involving both concentrations and source of nitrogen (soya-bean meal in parentheses), the mean daily live-weight gains were (1·40), 1·38, (1·32), 1·34 (1·34) and 1·31 kg for stage 2 (F > 0·05) and (1·14), 1·14, (1.24), 1·16, (1·06) and 1·08 kg for stage 3 (P < 0·05), for the diets of 130, 145 and 160 g CP per kg diet respectively.

Trial 2 consisted of six stages of growth, the first five of 45 days duration and the sixth of varying length up to a predicted slaughter weight, and seven dietary treatments. Treatment 1 was a negative control (NC) with a dietary CP concentration of 90 g/kg DM. For the other six treatments two concentrations of dietary CP were given; 120 g/kg and 140 g/kg in stages 1 and 2 and 100 g/kg or 120 g/kg in stages 3 to 6. Dietary CP concentration was increased by the addition of NPN, fish meal or soya-bean meal. A total of 98 Friesian bulls were used with an initial average live weight of 185 kg. Daily gain of the NC group in the six stages of the trial was 0·86, 0·97, 101, 1·13, 1·07 and 1·00 kg for stages 1 to 6 respectively. From the results it was concluded that feeding NPN is not efficient at live weights lower than 250 kg and that there is no advantage to feeding fish meal over soya-bean meal in diets of medium energy concentration at live weights heavier than 250 kg.

Three experiments, designed as three simultaneous 4 × 4 Latin squares (21-day feeding periods), were conducted using pregnant beef cows. Diets were based on barley straw given ad libitum together with 1·7 kg dry matter (DM) of either molassed sugar-beet pulp (MSBP) (experiment 1), unmolassed sugarbeet pulp (USBP) (experiment 2), or rolled barley (BARLEY) (experiment 3). In the respective experiments, MSBP, USBP and BARLEY were given either alone, to provide about 200 g crude protein (CP) per day (CONTROL) or were supplemented with urea (U), untreated soya-bean meal (SBM) or formaldehyde-treated soya-bean meal (FT-SBM) to provide a further 200 g CP per day. The contrasting dietary treatments in the three experiments provided intakes of rumen-degradable protein (RDP) ranging from 16 to 388 g/day.

All protein supplements improved overall straw DM intakes, the improvement being significant for U only (P < 0·01). A linear relationship between the daily intake of RDP (g) and straw DM (kg) was obtained. The regression equation was:

DM intake = 5·03 + 0·0035 × RDP (R2 = 0·703; residual s.d. 0·561; d.f. 35; P < 0·001).

All protein supplements also improved the apparent digestibility of straw organic matter (OM) (P < 0·05) and the metabolizable energy (ME) obtained from straw (P < 0·01). Blood urea was increased due to supplementation with urea (P < 0·001), SBM (P < 0·01) and FT-SBM (P < 0·05). Supplementation with BARLEY appeared to improve straw DM intake over MSBP and USBP but this was not reflected in improved ME intake from straw.

For 25 weeks starting at week 3 post partum autumn-calving dairy cows were offered either a flat rate of concentrates in which all cows received the same daily amount throughout the experiment (F), or a variable rate based on their individual milk yield at 2 weeks post partum, and which was reduced at weeks 10, 15 and 20 of the experiment (V). Two mean amounts of concentrates were compared, 11 kg/day (11) and 7 kg/day (7) and grass silage was available ad libitum. For treatments 11F, 11V, 7F and 7V respectively, mean milk yields were 26·2, 24·5, 21·5 and 21·3 kg/day, mean live-weight changes were +0·18, +0·07, -0·09 and -0·05 kg/day, and mean silage dry-matter intakes were 8·0, 7·1, 9·4 and 9·0 kg/day. Differences between systems of allocation were not significant, but differences between amounts of concentrates offered were significant. Due to the greater milk yield and milk fat concentration of the F system of allocation, milk fat yield was significantly greater than for the V system. The substitution rate of concentrates for silage dry matter was significantly greater during the first 10 weeks of the experiment than during the succeeding 15 weeks. In the residual period (3 weeks indoors and 14 weeks grazing), there were no significant effects on performance. The mean 305-day milk yields for 11F, 11V, 7F and 7V respectively were 6957, 6388, 5862 and 5901 kg.

Sixty-four Friesian/Holstein cows culled from dairy herds were selected for uniformity and general health. They were allocated to five groups of 12 on the basis of body condition and live weight excluding the two cows at each extreme. These four cows indicated the range of condition and live weight in the sample and were slaughtered at the beginning of the trial with one group of 12 cows. Of the remaining four groups, two were implanted with 300 mg trenbolone acetate (Finaplix, Hoechst) and two used as unimplanted controls; one implanted group and one control group were slaughtered after 60 days and the remaining cows after 100 days. All cows were individually fed to appetite on a pelleted diet of 500 g dried lucerne and 500 g barley per kg. After slaughter the left side of each carcass was cut into primal joints and then separated into fat, lean and bone.

Implantation resulted in greater live-weight gains to 60 days (1·35 v. 112 kg/day, P > 0·05) and to 100 days (1·31 v. 0·92 kg/day, P < 0·01), greater lean meat production and an increase in the lean proportion of carcasses.

Feeding cows for 100 days rather than for 60 days led to higher slaughter weights but daily live-weight gain decreased and food intake increased progressively between 60 and 100 days. Carcasses from cows slaughtered at 100 days had significantly higher lean, fat and bone weights (P < 0·01) but as a proportion of side weight only the fat proportion of the carcass was significantly increased (P < 0·05).

It was concluded that the supplementary feeding of cull cows produced heavier carcasses but at these high rates of gain increased yield was at the expense of proportionately more fat in the carca?.s. This problem was partially countered by implantation with trenbelone acetate.

Two experiments were conducted with weaned, suckled calves to investigate the effect of feeding level during the post-weaning winter on their subsequent performance when continuously grazed on pasture maintained at two sward heights. Low, medium and high levels of winter feeding resulted in winter live-weight gains of 0·31, 0·58 and 0·79 (s.e. 0·027) kg/day (P < 0·001) during the 152-day winter in experiment 1 and 0·44, 0·69 and 0·84 (s.e. 0·029) kg/day (P < 0·001) for 189 days in experiment 2. During summer (93 days in experiment 1 and 87 days in experiment 2) there was a significant effect of winter food level on performance when live-weight gains were 1·10, 1·02, 0·87 and 1·35, 1·23 and 1·19 (s.e. 0·060) kg/day for the low, medium and high winter food levels on the short and tall swards respectively in experiment 1 (P < 0·01) and 0·86, 0·66, 0·51 and 1·26, 1·18 and 0·91 (s.e. 0090) kg/day in experiment 2 (P < 0·001). The cattle showing compensatory growth had higher herbage intakes and it is postulated that this occurred because of a negative association between body fat and herbage intake. Sward height had a large positive effect on herbage intake and live-weight gain and it is concluded that for maximum intake on ryegrass swards, herbage height should be at least 8 cm. Lower levels of winter live-weight gain delayed the time to slaughter, but allowed cattle to achieve heavier carcass weights at a fixed level of fatness.

It is concluded that there is no single optimum winter food level for weaned, suckled calves but that the choice will depend upon several factors, including availability of winter and summer food resources, the length of the winter feeding period, the desired date of slaughter and type of carcass to be produced.

Two experiments are described in which dairy cows in early lactation were individually offered ad libitum complete diets containing firstly rolled barley, wheat or oats comprising proportionately 0·6 of the total dry matter (DM) and seeondly, whole oats, rolled oats or whole oats soaked in sodium hydroxide comprising proportionately 0·5 of the total DM. Organic-matter (OM) digestibility was measured using chromium III oxide as an external faecal marker and production of milk, milk fat and milk protein were monitored. Rumen digestion rates of each grain type were measured in sacco using non-lactating cows.

In the first experiment, voluntary DM intakes did not differ between diets, OM digestibilities were, in decreasing order, wheat > barley > oats, and faecal starch concentrations were, in decreasing order, barley > wheat > oats. Cows given oats produced the most milk and milk fat while cows given wheat produced the most milk protein. Digested OM was used most efficiently by cows given oats and their greater productivity was attributed partly to higher levels of dietary fibre and lipid.

In the second experiment, cows fed alkali-treated oats had higher (though non-significant) DM intakes and produced the most milk, milk fat and milk protein. Excretion rates of whole grain from cows given treated or untreated whole oats did not differ, but grain weight loss in transit through the gut was higher with the alkali-treated grain. Food intakes and yields of milk and milk solids were similar in cows given either whole untreated or coarsely rolled oats.

Between six and 11 twin pairs each of the breeds Braunvieh (BV), Fleckvieh (FV), Grauvieh (GV), Pinzgauer (Pi) and Friesians (Fr) were either treated uniformly or separated and fattened to veal or to yearling bull stage. The aim of the experiment was the comparison of Central European breeds and to investigate genotype × rearing system interaction both within and between breeds. Veal calves were slaughtered at about 120 to 150 kg live weight (proportionately about 0·13 of estimated mature weight of bulls) and yearling bulls at 410 to 460 kg live weight, corresponding to proportionately 0·38 of estimated mature weight. In general, the dual-purpose breeds had higher growth rates both absolute (AGR) and relative (RGR) and better food conversion ratios (FCR) than the dairy breed, Friesian, and this was true irrespective of whether correlations were made to constant age, weight, maturity (equal proportion of adult weight) or carcass fatness. However, the early-weaned Friesian calves grew fastest in the early phase of the growing period and this probably reflected their superior appetite.

Interactions between breeds and rearing system (bull v. veal) were significant for RGR and for maturity-corrected FCR which was mainly caused by shifting of the positions of BV and Pi.

The pooled genetic correlations between performance in the different fattening categories were considerably below unity. The twin-pair correlations indicated high heritabilities which are biased by contributions from dominance and maternal environment. While in data corrected to comparable maturity, AGR and RGR were highly positively correlated, their correlation became negative in agecorrected data. The correlations with FCR displayed an equivalent change with sign reversed. The correlations between wither height and heart girth with AGR were positive for age-corrected data but negative or barely positive, respectively, for data corrected to equal maturity. Again, FCR behaved similarly but with sign reversed.

As part of a multibreed cattle project for studying genetic variation between breeds, four adult females from each of five breeds of cattle were kept for up to 2 years in a non-pregnant, non-lactating state on each of four feeding levels. The breeds, which were Hereford, Aberdeen Angus, Dexter, British Friesian and Jersey, provided a wide range of genetic potential for body size and milk yield. The feeding levels were arranged to make the weight of lipid in the whole body about 0·05, 0·15, 0·25 and 0·35 times body weight. After an animal had been assigned to a fixed daily intake, its body weight and condition score were monitored over a period varying from 6 to 18 months until an equilibrium body weight and body composition had been established.

For standard adult body weight, Akg, and for an equilibrium body weight, Wkg, and an associated metabolizable energy intake, f/MJ, the maintenance efficiency of a breed adjusted for breed size was defined as Em = W/fA0·21. The ‘lactability’ of a breed, that is, its genetic potential lactation yield, Ykg, adjusted for breed size, was defined as Y = Y/A. The between-breed regression of Em on Y had a coefficient of -0·043 (s.e. 0·007). There was, thus, a highly significant dairy-beef gradient in the equilibrium maintenance efficiency of these non-pregnant, non-lactating adult females.

An expected value for the equilibrium maintenance requirement, of a breed or individual as a function of its lactability was estimated to be:

which implies that the maintenance requirement of dairy breeds is about 0·2 times greater than that of beef breeds, a result which was strongly supported by a literature survey, although mean estimates from feeding trials and fasting trials were anomalous.

Combining this result for milk yield with published results on growth rate, leads to the hypothesis that the greater the maximum gross efficiency of a breed for meat or milk production, the less efficiently it maintains itself, not because of any difference in fasting metabolism, but because of a reduced efficiency of food utilization for maintenance.

Forty-eight Hereford × Friesian and Blue Grey cows ranging in body condition score from 1·75 to 4·0, 12 weeks before calving, were fed to achieve three levels of body condition score at calving. Half the cows were fed on an increasing plane of nutrition as pregnancy advanced and half were fed on a flat-rate feeding system. The condition scores achieved by the three groups at calving were 2·28, 2·47 and 2·70 (s.e.d. 0·071; P < 0·001). Differences in cow body condition at calving were reflected in cow live weight and condition 6 weeks later, but there was no effect on calf performance. Hereford × Friesian cows lost more weight in early lactation, tended to produce more milk and their calves were heavier. Pattern of feeding had no effect on cow condition score or weight at calving or on subsequent performance.

It was calculated that each unit of body condition-score loss in late pregnancy contributes the equivalent of 3200 MJ dietary metabolizable energy while 6600 MJ dietary metabolizable energy are required for 1 unit of condition-score gain.

Hypothermia with starvation is a major cause of neonatal mortality among lambs born outdoors. The results of selection for resistance to hypothermia (cold resistance) in newborn Scottish Blackface lambs are described. Cold resistance was defined as the time required to induce a decline in body temperature of about 4·5°C by means of tests involving part-immersion in a cooled water bath. From about 200 tested lambs (half males) four ram lambs with the lowest cold resistance and four with the highest resistance were selected and each mated randomly at 7 months of age to about 30 ewes to establish upward and downward selection lines. The progeny were subsequently tested for cold resistance and the selection process was repeated for four male generations. Tested females were allocated at 18 months of age to high or low lines according to their performance as lambs.

Preliminary half-sib analysis and sire-offspring regression gave estimates of 0·3 for the heritability of cold resistance. Response to selection was rapid but asymmetrical with a realized heritability for cold resistance of 0·27 (s.e. 0·13) for upward selection, 0·01 (s.e. 0·16) for downward selection and 0·17 (s.e. 0·09) for the line divergence.

Body weight at test was phenotypically, but not genetically, correlated with cold resistance. Rate of recovery from induced hypothermia was not significantly correlated with cold resistance. The results are discussed in relation to lamb mortality in the field.

Sibs of five to 11 twin pairs each of five breeds were either slaughtered as veal or as yearling bulls. Highly significant breed differences were evident in the carcass tissue proportions which could be explained on the basis of differences in the physiology of dairy and dual-purpose animals, the former depositing more fat and more bone than dual-purpose breeds. Among the dual-purpose breeds the carcasses of the Pinzgauer (Pi) tended to rank between the carcasses of the Fleckvieh (FV), Braunvieh (BV), Grauvieh (GV) and those of the Friesian (Fr).

The dual-purpose breeds FV, BV, GV had more meat in the hindquarter and in the shoulder than the FR while these in turn had more meat in the brisket and in the flank and shank muscles. Again the Pi group tended to rank between the aforementioned groups.

Within breeds, large differences between twin pairs indicated high heritabilities for carcass tissue proportions and ratios. The heritability of commercial cut proportions was fairly high but the genetic variance was small, the genetic coefficient of variation being less than 0-02. The different degrees of sexual maturity and of carcass maturity also caused differences in the distribution of meat in the carcasses of young male animals.

Significant mean squares for interactions between treatments and breeds, and genetic correlations of less than unity between performance of twin genotypes in veal and in bulls, indicated age and/or rearing system by genotype interactions between and within breeds for various slaughter traits.

Phenotypic correlations between various slaughter traits were low except where part-whole relationships were involved. It is suggested that slaughter at comparable maturity in the respective treatments was the cause of the weak connection between the traits.

Analyses of variance were conducted using two separate random sets of data (25 158 and 24 084 records) on first-lactation, milk-production records of progeny of 69 British Friesian-Holstein proven sires in order to examine the criteria of seasonal grouping for a sire-evaluation model fitting herd-year-season as a fixed effect. Five different seasonal groupings were chosen each comprising two or three seasons with equal or unequal number of months and with different trends in production within season.

The smallest herd-year × month of calving within-season interaction, smallest residual variance, largest effective number of daughters and smallest among-months, within-season variation were considered to be the appropriate criteria of seasonal grouping. None of the groupings examined satisfied all criteria. However, a small herd-year × month within season interaction and all small within-season variation would be desirable if milk records were pre-corrected for the effect of month of calving in sire evaluation, and the effective number of daughters should be large. Given this the grouping currently used in Britain (three seasons: December to March, April to July and August to November) was considered to be appropriate, although a grouping with two seasons: February to July and August to January gave similar results. The regional differences in production were observed to be large, but the region × month-of-calving interaction was small.

Reproductive performance, body growth, wool production and ewe survival were examined in Scottish Blackface sheep. The data set was from a large randomly selected population maintained under hill conditions between 1954 and 1974. Paternal half-sib analyses of variance were used to estimate heritabilities and genetic correlations, while maternal half-sib analyses of variance indicated the relative importance of maternal effects (both genetic and environmental).

Among reproductive components, the heritability of fertility (ewes lambing per ewe mated) and lamb survival (lambs weaned per lamb born) were about zero. Litter size (lambs born per ewe lambing) had an estimated heritability of 0·12 (s.e. 0·04) and a repeatability of 0·22 (s.e. 0·02), indicating some scope for improvement. Additionally, the strong genetic correlation between adult body weight and litter size (0·66, s.e. 0·18) suggested greater response from a combination of indirect selection (on body weight) and direct selection (on dam's litter size). Prior to weaning, direct genetic effects on body weight were very small (heritability less than 0·1) with a large influence of maternal environment. After weaning, these maternal influences gradually diminished and the heritability of weight increased. Genetic correlations between body weights showed a similar increasing trend with age. Genetic improvement of early growth rate would be more effective by selecting on a post-weaning rather than a pre-weaning body weight. Fleece weight had a high heritability (about 0·5) but was genetically uncorrelated with other measures of performance. Ewe survival had a small genetic component although estimates of heritability were very imprecise.

Sixty Israeli-Friesian cows were allocated, after calving, to five treatment groups of 12 cows per group according to the concentration and source of crude protein (CP) in the concentrate. Three groups received all their protein from plant sources: a basal control group (BP) was given concentrate containing 92 g CP per kg dry matter (DM), a medium-protein group (MP) was given a diet with soya-bean meal (SBM) added to give a CP concentration of 143 g/kg DM, and a high-protein group (HP) was given a diet with SBM added to give a concentration of 180 g/kg DM. Two groups were given the basal concentrate supplemented with urea (MU) or urea phosphate (MUP) up to approximately the same CP level as the MP group. The only roughage used was vetch-oats hay at a level of 350 g/kg total DM intake. The cows were given the experimental diets ad libitum throughout lactation.

No difference was found between treatments in DM intake (kg/day), mean milk and fat-corrected milk (FCM; 40 g fat per kg) yields (kg/day), milk protein concentration, days from calving to conception or services per conception, during the entire lactation period. However, FCM yields during 60 days after calving were significantly higher for cows given the CP-supplemented diets than for the BP group. The FCM yield of the cows given the HP concentrate was higher than for those given the other concentrate mixtures only during the first 15 days after calving. Milk fat concentration was higher in cows given the BP and HP concentrates than in those given the MP ration, but only a trend in this respect was observed when part of the plant protein was replaced by urea or urea phosphate.

The rate of body-weight loss after calving tended to increase with increase in amount of plant protein in the diet but was highest for the cows given the diets supplemented with non-protein nitrogen. Later in lactation, the body-weights of cows given the MP, HP and MUP diets increased immediately after they reached their lowest weight whilst cows given the BP and MU diets started gaining weight 165 and 120 days after calving, respectively.

Rumen ammonia-N and blood urea-N concentrations (mg/1) for treatments BP, MP, HP, MU and MUP were: 56 and 101; 120 and 226; 143 and 269; 191 and 227; and 179 and 212, respectively. The relationship between rumen ammonia concentrations, blood urea concentrations and CP utilization for the different treatments is discussed. Supplying urea as urea phosphate tended to improve performance by an increase in annual milk and milk protein yields as well as in live-weight gain.