Deposition of major elements in the body of growing lambs of the German Merino Landsheep breed

A growth experiment with 108 lambs (breed German Merino Landsheep) was carried out to examine the effect of gender, body weight and feeding intensity on the deposition of Ca, P, Mg, Na and K in the empty body (whole animal minus contents of the gastro-intestinal tract and bladder). The lambs (50% female and 50% male) were fed at three levels of feeding intensity (“high”, “medium” and “low” by varying daily amounts of concentrate and hay) and slaughtered at different final body weights (30, 45 or 55 kg). Six male and six female animals were killed at a final body weight of 18 kg representing the body weight at the beginning of the comparative slaughter experiment. There were significant main effects for the three treatments (growth rate, final weight and gender) on the daily rate of accretion of most minerals. Feeding intensity had a marked feeding influence (P < 0.001) on the accretion rate for Ca, P, Mg, Na and K. With increasing feeding intensity (low, medium, high) the daily deposition of Ca and P increased (2.4; 2.7; 3.2 g for Ca and 1.3; 1.5; 1.8 g for P). The main effect of final body weight was evident for Ca (P = 0.046) and K (P < 0.001). Gender had a marked influence (P < 0.001) on the accretion rate for Mg, Na, K and P (P = 0.009). Ram lambs had a higher daily deposition of these elements than female lambs. For 1000 g empty body gain the accretion of Ca and P (14.0 and 7.5 g, respectively) in our investigations was clearly above the values in literature, while the readings for Mg, Na and K (0.4, 0.9, 1.7 g) show a good correspondence with the data in the literature. The elements Ca (P = 0.002), P (P = 0.030) and Mg (P = 0.003) reflected a feeding influence. With increasing feeding intensity the concentrations of these elements per kg gain of empty body dropped.