Energy requirements of growing small ruminants raised for meat production in contrasting climatic regions: a meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT: The objective of this meta-regression was to evaluate the influence of ruminant species, sex, and climatic regions on the metabolizable energy (ME) requirements for maintenance (MEm) and weight gain (MEg) in growing small ruminants raised for meat production across different climatic regions. Data included 655 and 337 treatment means from 173 and 99 studies on sheep and goats, respectively. Metabolizable energy intake (MEI; MJ/kg^^0.75) was regressed against average daily gain (ADG; g/kg^^0.75), with the study included as a random effect. The analysis found that MEm was not affected by species (P = 0.50), but MEg (MJ/g ADG) was significantly different between species (P = 0.02), with sheep requiring 0.032 (± 0.002) and go

SUBMITTER: Souza VC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11879033 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature