Small Ruminant Research 91 (2010) 87–92 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Small Ruminant Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/smallrumres Responses to saline drinking water in offspring born to ewes fed high salt during pregnancy  S.N. Digby a,d,∗ , D. Blache c,d , D.G. Masters b,d , D.K. Revell a,b,d a Discipline of Agricultural and Animal Science, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, The University of Adelaide, Roseworthy, SA 5371, Australia b CSIRO Livestock Industries, Private Bag 5, Wembley, WA 6913, Australia c School of Animal Biology M085, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia d Future Farm Industries Cooperative Research Centre M081, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia article info Article history: Available online 25 February 2010 Keywords: Saline water Salt and water balance Feed intake Fetal programming abstract We have studied the fetal programming of lambs born to ewes exposed to high salt during pregnancy. In the present study, we hypothesise that salt-programmed lambs may not need to drink as much saline water as control lambs and that voluntary feed intake of salt-programmed lambs would be reduced. We used two groups of lambs born to ewes fed either a high salt (13% NaCl) diet during pregnancy (S-lambs; n = 12) or control animals born to ewes fed a conventional (0.5% NaCl) diet during pregnancy (C-lambs; n = 12). Animals were offered ad libitum amounts of saline drinking water containing 1.5% NaCl for 2 days. Results indicated that there was a significant difference between fetal origin of the lamb (i.e. between C and S-lambs) and time (day 1 and 2) on water intake (P = 0.055), urinary output (P = 0.002), and sodium excretion (P = 0.002). There was an interaction between fetal origin of the lambs and time (day 1 and 2) on the area under the curve (AUC) for the plasma concentration of aldosterone (P = 0.017). Aldosterone concentration for C-lambs ranged from 167 to 196 pg/ml over days 1 and 2, whilst S-lambs reduced their aldosterone by two-thirds from day 1 to 2, from 214 ± 24 to 74 ± 8 pg/ml. A novel result was a marked difference in feed intake between C and S-lambs, where S-lambs consumed approximately 0.5 kg DM/day (35%) less than C-lambs which was associated with a decrease in insulin secretion with time in both S and C-lambs. In conclusion, feeding a high salt diet to pregnant ewes affected the physiological responses of their offspring to the consumption of saline water during a period of 2 days illustrating that fetal programming changed the temporal pattern of how the offspring adapt to a load of ingested salt. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.  This paper is part of a special issue entitled: Potential use of halo- phytes and other salt-tolerant plants in sheep and goat feeding, Guest Edited by Hichem Ben-Salem and Pierre Morand-Fehr. ∗ Corresponding author. Present address: Liggins Institute, The Univer- sity of Auckland, Ngapouri Research Farm, Reporoa, 2739 State Highway 5 RD2 Reporoa 3083, New Zealand. Tel.: +64 7 333 8493; fax: +64 7 333 8493. E-mail address: s.digby@auckland.ac.nz (S.N. Digby). 1. Introduction The use of halophytic plants such as saltbush repre- sents one of the few viable options to revegetate saline landscapes and re-establish profitable grazing systems (Masters et al., 2007). Halophytic plants are being used as a feed source when pasture availability is reduced, such as during the summer/autumn feed gap (Masters et al., 2006). The shrubs (e.g. saltbush and bluebush) can contain over 20% of salt in their edible parts (Wilson, 1975) and inges- 0921-4488/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.smallrumres.2009.11.020