Abstract

An experiment was conducted at Massey University to measure potential growth rates of fawns and weight changes of hinds during summer, a period when growth is usually limited by adequate feed supply and/or quality. Thirty two lactating mixed age hinds and their fawns (average age 32.9 days) were blocks on calving date and randomly assigned to one of 4 treatments on the Massey deer unit. The treatments consisted of low (LC), medium (MC), or high allowance (HC) of pure red clover (6, 12 or 18 kg DM/hd/day) or 12 kg DM/hd/day of ryegrass/white clover pasture (CON). The corresponding stocking rates were 17.5, 8.7, 5.8 or 7.1 hind/fawn pairs/ha on the LC, MC, HC and CON treatments respectively. Treatments lasted for 61 days from 29 Dec until weaning on 28 Feb. Hinds and fawns were weighed bi-weekly. Weaning weights of the fawns were 51.3, 49.5, 46.7 and 42.8 kg for the HC, MC, LC and CON treatments respectively. This corresponded to fawn average daily weight gain of 461, 433, 380 and 333 g/day respectively. Fawn growth rates and weaning weights were significantly greater on all clover allowances than on the control (p<0.05). HC and MC treatments did not differ but were greater than LC (p<0.05). Hind weight changes followed a similar pattern. Liveweight gains for the hinds was 53, 58, 5 and -52 g/day for the HC, MC, LC and CON treatments respectively. All three allowances of red clover increased weight gain more than CON (p<0.09). HC and MC treatments did not differ but both were greater than LC (p<0.05).

R, Rangel-santos, MF McDonald, and GA Wickham

Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 51, , 139-142, 1991