Long-term effects of short-term provision of protein-enriched diets on resistance to nematode infection, and live-weight gain and wool growth in sheep.

Weaner sheep that had been hand-fed on diets containing increasing concentrations of protein for a 9-week period (when uninfected, or infected with Haemonchus contortus) were studied during the next 69 weeks when put on to pasture as a single, unsupplemented flock. During the 9-week period, groups of 12 sheep (six infected, six uninfected) were offered one of five iso-energetic (9.0 MJ kg(-1)) diets containing 10, 13, 16, 19 or 22% crude protein. All sheep were treated with anthelmintic at the end of the 9 weeks and then put out to pasture for 69 weeks, where they were all subject to the same environmental variables including nematode larval challenge. During the grazing period, animals that had previously received the higher protein diets consistently had higher live-weight gain and wool production, higher antibody responses to both H. contortus and Trichostrongylus colubriformis antigenic challenge in vitro, and lower faecal nematode egg counts than did the lambs previously offered the lower protein diets. Faecal egg counts of the grazing sheep that had been artificially infected with H. contortus while being hand-fed were similar to those of the uninfected sheep and there was no interaction between previous infection and dietary protein concentration. We conclude that short periods of enhanced post-weaning nutrition can have long-term and perhaps life-long effects on production.