الفهرس Only 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 102 |  |  |
| | | from | 102 | | |
Abstract
1. INTRODUCTION
In Egypt, the total sheep population is about 4 million heads (FAO, 1998). Sheep population representing 30 percent of the respective total population in Egypt. Over the past decade this percentage tended to increase with the existing governmental policy encouraging exportation of live animals to the neighboring Arab countries (Abdelsalam, 1995) Barki sheep is the main breed in semi-arid coastal zone of the western zone of Egypt. They are well known for their adaptability to harsh, semi-arid and arid environments. Barki sheep is reared mainly for meat and wool production.
Milk production plays a vital role in all farm animals. In any flock of sheep, a large number of lambs is lost every year because of unsatisfactory suckling, thus, the reproductive efficiency of a ewe depends not only on her ability to produce multiple births, but also on its efficiency of raising her lambs until weaning age. Mothering ability of ewe is dependant on her milk quantity and quality which are reflected on the growth of her lambs.
Many factors can have major or minor effects on the goal of improving milk and meat production especially feeding, it means that additional feed will produce additional milk and meat up to a certain biological limit. Level of feeding in the last two months of pregnancy (late pregnancy) and after lambing (during lactation period) may affect the milk production of ewe during lactation period and also has an effect on the growth of lambs (Owen, 1981).
The present work was carried out to threw a light on the effect of