Forage Supplementation Feeding of Lactating Merino Ewes in Dry Season at the Foothills Agro-ecological Zone in Lesotho

A farmer-participatory research, which lasted for seven weeks, was carried out at Machache, in the Foothills Agro-Ecological Zone of Lesotho to examine the effect of forage based diets supplementary feeding on the performance response and milk quality of lactating ewes during dry lambing season. A total of 270 lactating merino ewes were randomly distributed among four dietary treatments: basal diet (T1) which was the range land pasture used as control, cereal forage based diet (T2), leguminous forage based diet (T3) and mixed forage based diet (T4). The feed value of the supplementary diets T2 (4.70% CP and 9.94MJ/kg ME), T3 (12.31% CP and 10.27 MJ/kg ME), T4 (11.90% CP and 10.47 MJ/kg ME)] was superior to that of the range land pasture T1 (2.80% CP and 8.61MJ/kg ME). Ewes on forage supplemented diets performed significantly (P<0.05) better than the control group in feed intake, live body weight and live weight change. The milk quality evaluation showed that solids-non-fat (SNF), protein and lactose were highly significant (P<0.05) for T3 and T4 than T1 and T2 which had high milk fat. The study revealed that diets T1 and T2 lacked the nutritional capacity to meet the nutrient requirements of lactating ewes as evidenced by slight body weight improvement. It is concluded that supplementary diets T3 (leguminous forage based diet) and T4 (mixed forage based diet) contained adequate nutrients that can meet the requirement of lactating ewes during dry lambing season. This was verified by high voluntary feed intake and good nutrients utilization as resulted by improving of body weight and high milk quality response of lactating ewes.