Effect of age and food intake on dietary carbon turnover recorded in sheep wool

We present the results of a series of controlled feeding experiments with sheep, designed to investigate the effects of age and level of food intake on the kinetics of incorporation of the dietary carbon signal into wool. Four different groups of three sheep each, ranging in age from 6 to 78 months, were fed a C(3) diet and switched to a C(4) diet for up to 250 days. Different quantities of the same C(4) diet were provided to each group, in order to achieve different growth rates (high, low, and no growth). Wool was repeatedly shorn from each animal and processed for delta(13)C analyses. Results show that newly grown wool does not start recording the isotope composition of the new diet immediately after the diet-switch. The time-lag varies according to the age of the animal, from 6 +/- 1 days in lambs to up to 15 +/- 4 days in the older ewes. Wool from fast-growing lambs approached equilibrium faster than that from slow-growing lambs and young ewes, with old ewes being the slowest. However, 3 weeks after the diet-switch, the differences in wool delta(13)C values between the four different groups of animals were relatively small and represented less than 15% of the isotopic difference between the two diets. These results suggest that a single equation can be used to reconstruct previous diets for animals of different age, provided that the diet is similar and all individuals are in positive protein balance.