Silva, T A C C; Cowley, F C

Author(s)

Silva, T A C C

Cowley, F C

Publication Date

2021

Abstract

Publication also known as Animal Production in Australia, volume 33

Abstract

Small ruminants are an important resource for improving the livelihood of smallholder farmers in tropical livestock systems. However, there is a lack of information in regards to the potential of meat productivity (i.e. kg of liveweight produced per area) of growing sheep in such systems, especially when grazing tropical pastures. The aim of this study was to describe the potential of these systems, and identify and quantify the impact of the main factors associated with the two components of meat productivity: average liveweight gain (LWG) per head and number of animals per area. This was achieved by conducting a meta-analysis of published data of post-weaning sheep growth during the wet-season in tropical climates. The empirical data from published studies were collated in a database with the following parameters: stocking rates, grazing method, fertilizer application, grazing time, pasture biomass, pasture species, pasture nutritive value, type of supplementation, level of supplementation, nutritive value of the supplement, animal genotype, sex, initial and final liveweight, liveweight gain and faecal egg count. For this analysis only grazing studies on growing animals which described stocking rate at LWG were selected. The dataset was coded following the recommendations provided by Sauvant et al. (2008) and weighted based on the number of observations. As there was interest in investigating the effects of these management strategies on meat productivity, data were categorised according to the level of nitrogen fertilization and the use or not of supplements. All analyses were performed by specifying a linear mixed effect regression model with study included as a random effect and candidate risk factors included as fixed effects. A backward-step model building process was adopted. The final model that only contained statistically significant main effect terms and, based on Akaike information criterion and conditional and marginal R2, considered to best fit the data was selected.

Citation

Animal Production Science, 61(3), p. clxxxiii-clxxxiii

ISSN

1836-5787

1836-0939

Link

https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/31000

Publisher

CSIRO Publishing

Title

Sheep productivity in the tropics: finding the limits by a meta-analytic approach

Type of document

Conference Publication

Entity Type

Publication

Author(s)	Silva, T A C C Cowley, F C
Publication Date	2021
Abstract	Publication also known as <i>Animal Production in Australia</i>, volume 33
Abstract	Small ruminants are an important resource for improving the livelihood of smallholder farmers in tropical livestock systems. However, there is a lack of information in regards to the potential of meat productivity (i.e. kg of liveweight produced per area) of growing sheep in such systems, especially when grazing tropical pastures. The aim of this study was to describe the potential of these systems, and identify and quantify the impact of the main factors associated with the two components of meat productivity: average liveweight gain (LWG) per head and number of animals per area. This was achieved by conducting a meta-analysis of published data of post-weaning sheep growth during the wet-season in tropical climates. The empirical data from published studies were collated in a database with the following parameters: stocking rates, grazing method, fertilizer application, grazing time, pasture biomass, pasture species, pasture nutritive value, type of supplementation, level of supplementation, nutritive value of the supplement, animal genotype, sex, initial and final liveweight, liveweight gain and faecal egg count. For this analysis only grazing studies on growing animals which described stocking rate at LWG were selected. The dataset was coded following the recommendations provided by Sauvant <i>et al.</i> (2008) and weighted based on the number of observations. As there was interest in investigating the effects of these management strategies on meat productivity, data were categorised according to the level of nitrogen fertilization and the use or not of supplements. All analyses were performed by specifying a linear mixed effect regression model with study included as a random effect and candidate risk factors included as fixed effects. A backward-step model building process was adopted. The final model that only contained statistically significant main effect terms and, based on Akaike information criterion and conditional and marginal R<sup>2</sup>, considered to best fit the data was selected.
Citation	Animal Production Science, 61(3), p. clxxxiii-clxxxiii
ISSN	1836-5787 1836-0939
Link	https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/31000
Publisher	CSIRO Publishing
Title	Sheep productivity in the tropics: finding the limits by a meta-analytic approach
Type of document	Conference Publication
Entity Type	Publication

Sheep productivity in the tropics: finding the limits by a meta-analytic approach

Files: