Electronic feed stations for feeding concentrates to pregnant ewes on commercial sheep farms
Peer reviewed, Journal article
Accepted version
Permanent lenke
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2682062Utgivelsesdato
2019Metadata
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Originalversjon
Acta agriculturae Scandinavica. Section A, Animal science. 2019, . 10.1080/09064702.2019.1692898Sammendrag
The aim of this study was to investigate the use and capacity of electronic feed stations (EFS) on commercial sheep farms. The study was conducted on four commercial farms and the numbers of pregnant ewes per EFS were 36, 70, 72 and 80, respectively. Each farm was visited once and behavioural observations were carried out. In addition the date and time for both entering and leaving the EFS and the amount of concentrates dispensed at each visit for extracted. The vast majority of the ewes used the EFS regularly. The number of rewarded visits per ewe per day varied from 3.2 to 5.9, whereas the number of unrewarded visits ranged from 6.0 to 21.5 per ewe per day. We conclude that feeding concentrates to groups of pregnant ewes in EFS function satisfactory, but the design of the entrance and exit gate still have to be improved considerably.