Exploitation of Mountain Pastures by Grazing with Ovine Youth

With a view to testing the potential of valuing the natural pastures in the mountain area for the meat production, there was made up a group of 15 young male urcana sheep aged between 90-110 days and an average weight of 20.66 kg. The lambs were kept on a natural mountain unspoiled pasture, situated in the Cindrel Mountains, Paltinis area. The animals were weighed at the beginning and at the end of the experiment, in order to determine the evolution of the body mass of the animals, the floristic composition of the pasture was determined, the quantity and quality of the production of green mass on each lot were determined as well. During the testing period of 28 days of grazing, the lambs achieved an average daily growth of 94+/- 0.37 g and a total growth of body mass of 2.66 kg.