DEER

Nutritional requirements for pregnant and lactating red and fallow deer

  • 149 pages

  • Published: 1 Jun 2001

  • Author(s): Mulley, RC, Flesch, JS

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Successful meat production systems require adequate care and maintenance of breeding females to ensure productivity and profitability are also maintained.

This report documents, for the first time, the daily feeding requirements of pregnant and lactating fallow and red deer, species that make up more than 90% of the farmed deer industry in Australia.

Daily nutritional requirements have been found to be higher than previously thought for fallow deer, with significant seasonal variations. In addition, adult does rapidly face competition from their fawns, which start to consume “hard” feed from seven weeks of age and have the same daily nutritional requirements from 16 weeks of age.

In terms of cost control, this report shows how precise strategic feeding of red and fallow deer can lead to improved fertility and higher quality carcases.