Determination of Animal Unit and Animal Daily Forage Requirement of Ghezel Sheep Breed in West Azarbayjan Rangeland

Concepts of animal equivalence have been developed to express different kind and classes of grazing animal in common form. This concept is not fixed and usually determinate on the basis of live weight and metabolic weight. More than 27 sheep breeds with different body size have been adapted and grazing on rangeland in different climatic zones of Iran. So it is not correct to use the same animal unit weight for all. Therefore is necessary for each breed, animal unit weight is determinate. In this study, two herds of West Azarbayjan Ghezel breed were selected, 3 and 4 years old ewes, 3 and 4 years old rams and 3 and 6 months lambs were weighted in two stages in each breed. For determination of dry matter requirement forage quality was taken in to consideration. Daily requirement of animal for maintenance condition was calculated using of NRC (1985) tables and MAFF (1984) equation. On the basis of results; Animal unit was obtained 71.57 kg. Daily requirement of animal was evaluation 14.33 Mj and dry matter requirement was calculated 2.49 kg.