In nematodes, the intestine senses and integrates early-life dietary cues that lead to lifelong epigenetic adaptations to a perceived nutritional environment—it is not clear whether this process occurs in mammals. We aimed to establish a mouse model of reduced dietary cholesterol availability from maternal milk and investigate the consequences of decreased milk cholesterol availability, early in life, on metabolism of cholesterol in adult mice. We blocked intestinal absorption of cholesterol in milk fed to newborn mice by supplementing the food of dams (for 3 weeks between birth and weaning) with ezetimibe, which is secreted into milk.