Foetal programming in sheep – Effects on production

The long-term consequences of sub-optimal environments in early life have received substantial attention by medical and public health researchers over the last couple of decades. Somewhat less research attention has been aimed at the same issues in production animals. Production animals are often used as models for the study of human biology and these studies have suggested that later-life metabolic and physiological pathways may well be perturbed by early-life events. The purpose of this paper was to review the sheep based literature to understand whether evidence exists to suggest that early-life environmental perturbations might result in agriculturally relevant changes in animal performance, both in the current generation and future generations. If such evidence is found, then recommendations are needed as to the next steps in moving towards on-farm interventions to either mitigate or harness the effects of early-life perturbations. If such evidence is not found then recommendations are needed regarding the necessity for further research or not.