Does a low quality diet impact the success of twin pregnacy and the carcass quality of meat producing lambs?

Abstract – Perturbations of the prenatal and postnatal environments are known to have metabolic,physiological and behavioral impacts later in life. This study investigated the effects of low quality versushigh quality diets without complementation from midto near-term gestation on growth capacities, metabolicprofile and carcass quality of 5 month-old meat producing lambs. Between weeks 11 and 19 ofpregnancy, multiparous Romane ewes were fed ad libitum either a high quality/low fiber hay (well-fed;covering 100% of energy and protein requirements; n = 15) or a low quality/high fiber hay (restricted;covering 50-70% of protein and energy requirements; n = 15). The underfed state of ewes fed the low qualityhay was ascertained by the increased plasma level of non-esterified fatty acids and beta-hydroxybutyraterelative to well-fed ewes, while those of glucose, urea and amino acids decreased. The maternal dietaryrestriction did not impact pregnancy success or lambs' body weight at birth. No strong differences wererecorded between lambs born from well-fed and restricted ewes in terms of morphometric, metabolicprofile and growth or slaughter measurements. These results are of fundamental interest to the field ofruminants' adaptation to variability of their forage quality induced by climatic perturbations