الفهرس 
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Abstract
This experiment was carried out at Maryout Desert Research Station (locates in Alexandria) which belongs to the Desert Research Center, Cairo, Egypt,
Forty eight adult local desert non-pregnant and non-lactating females, age 4-5 yrs.; of which sixteen animals of Barki sheep (34.53 ±1.56 kg as average body weight), Balady goats (31.11 ± 1.63 kg as average body weight) and Shami goats (28.08±0.92 kg as average body weight), were individually housed in pens for 3-month period then moved to metabolic cages in to study effects of long-term restricted feeding regime on digestion and energy expenditure (EE) and energy and protein balance. Animals of each species were allocated to two levels of feed intake. Animals on a control feeding treatment were fed a diet with adequate energy of maintenance or at a level of feeding to meet approximately the metabolizable energy for maintenance requirement (MEm) (control), while those on the other dietary treatment was fed almost 50% of these quantities on a BW basis, termed as the restricted treatment (restricted). Alfalfa hay and concentrate feed mixture were given at 50:50%.
The results could be summarized as follows:
I) Comparison between Balady goats and Sheep:
a- Body weight change:
1- The ADG was not affected (P< 0.05) by animal species (BG vs. SH) being corresponding values 45.1 and 56.8 g/d respectively. However, ADG was affected (P< 0.01) by feed intake level where RES animal group showed a negative ADG (-65.6 g/d) compared with C group that achieved positive ADG (36.4).
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2- For the effect of feeding treatment, regardless of species, animals on the controlled feeding treatment (control, CON) had insignificant increased for BW compared with animals on restricted treatment (RES). The main values were 30.56 and 28.49 kg for CON and RES, respectively.
b- Nutrients intake:
1- Dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP) and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) intakes expressed as g/kg BW0.75 were higher (P<0.01) for SH vs. BG. The mean values were 45.65 vs. 43.91 for DM and 45.73 vs. 43.97 for OM and 6.32 vs. 6.08 for CP and 27.93 vs. 26.84 g/kg BW0.75 for NDF in SH vs. BG, respectively.
2- Under control intake level (CON), BG and SH had similar values of DM, OM, CP and NDF intakes. However, at a restricted intake level, SH had a greater (P<0.01) of DM, OM, CP and NDF intakes compared to BG when it expressed as g/kg BW0.75.
c- Nutrients digestibility:
1- Sheep showed greater (P<0.01) DM, OM, CP and NDF digestibility compared to BG, the main values were 56.03 vs. 50.83 % for DM and 62.80 vs. 58.33 % for OM and 61.72 vs. 58.30 % for CP and 57.80 vs. 51.67 % for NDF in Sheep vs. BG, respectively.
2- For the effect of feeding treatment, regardless of species, animals on control intake level had higher (P<0.01) values of DM, OM, CP and NDF digestibility than that in animals fed on restricted intake level.
3- A significant interaction was detected between animal species and intake level regarding the digestibility. Sheep had higher (P<0.01) values of DM, OM, CP and NDF digestibility than BG under both CON and RES intake level.