Evaluating Nutritional Limitations for Efficient Lamb Production

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The current demand for lamb meat products far exceeds the national supply. A major challenge towardsimproving domestic supply is the refinement of cost-effective feeding strategies. This project aims to evaluatepractical feeding strategies that can be used to improve finishing lamb productivity, lamb carcasscharacteristics, and cost-effectiveness while considering potential impacts on the environment. To address theaim, lambs will be fed finishing diets containing a low but adequate crude protein, low but adequate crudeprotein diet with added lipid, high crude protein diet without fat, and high crude protein without added lipidusing distillers dry grains with solubles to increase dietary crude protein, or a high crude protein diet withadded lipid using heat damaged whole canola seed to increase both lipid and crude protein. It should be notedthat these feeding strategies represent practical strategies and utilize byproduct feeds that do not enter thehuman food chain. It is also anticipated that the diets with added lipid would reduce methane emissions and thelow crude protein diets would improve the efficiency of nitrogen use by the lambs. This study will provideimportant information to help improve our knowledge on finishing lamb production and provide a benefit toCanadians by helping to stabilize supply and cost.