Compensatory growth in sheep and cattle. II. Changes in body composition and tissue weights

Compensatory growth can be due to increased protein deposition, reduced maintenance and greater feed intake. However, the contribution to and interaction between these mechanisms during compensatory growth is not clear. It was hypothesized that initial compensatory growth was due to reduced maintenance requirement and greater deposition of protein, after which compensatory growth was due to greater feed intake. Changes in the composition of sheep and cattle were measured during nutritional restriction and subsequent compensatory growth, and compared with the changes in control animals fed ad libitum throughout. At the end of the experiment the restricted cattle had compensated completely, and there was no difference in the body composition of the restricted and the control cattle. The restricted sheep did not compensate completely and were leaner than the control sheep. During nutritional restriction there was differential weight loss of carcase tissues in both the sheep and the cattle. The greatest losses were in the liver and the digestive tract in both species and in the skin of the sheep. It was concluded that the loss of these tissues reduced the maintenance requirement of the restricted animals and that the lowered maintenance requirement persisted during re-alimentation until these tissues had been fully repleted. Further, the repletion of these tissues required an increase in protein deposition, and it was a combination of these two mechanisms that was responsible for compensatory growth during the first 12 weeks of re-alimentation.