Supplemental values of Poultry litter, Leucaena leucocephala and Groundnut haulms on growth, nutrient digestibility, and economy of Yankasa rams’ fattening.

Abstrakt

Fattening of sheep by small farm holders in Nigeria entails mainly feeding with crop byproducts. There is a need to evaluateother strategies such as incorporating leguminous crops and poultry wastes. Therefore, experiment to determine the growth performance, nutrient digestibility, and economic analysis of Yankasa rams fed a basal diet of Panicum maximum and groundnut haulms hay, with supplemental diets of dried poultry litterand Leucaena leucocephala leaf meal-based concentrates designated as T1, T2 and T3 was conducted.

The 12 weeks study involved fifteen (15) yearling yankasa rams with initial weights of 16-18.2 kg, randomly assigned in a completely randomized design of three treatments and five replicates. The result showed significant differences (p<0.05) among the means of total weight gain, average daily metabolic weight gain, and feed conversion ratio in T1 when compared to the other two treatments. Animals on T2 and T3 had statistically similar (p>0.05) values in total weight gain (5.33±0.2kg and 5.17±0.2kg), average metabolic weight gain (23.12 ±0.2gd^-1 and 21.17±0.2gd^-1) and feed conversion ratio (15.2±0.8 and 15.9±0.1). These values were significantly higher (p<0.05) than the values obtained for animals on T1(P<0.05). However, total feed intake in all the 3 treatments did not show any significant differences (p>0.05).

Animals on the groundnut haulms diet (T1) recorded significantly higher (p<0.05) cost of feed per kilogram weight gain than animals on T2 and T3 diets. Crude protein digestibility and CF in T2 and T3 were similar but significantly higher than the CP digestibility of T1(p<0.05). Supplementation of sheep diets with groundnut haulms hay or with dried poultry litter and Leucaena leucocephala leaf meal-based concentrate enhanced utilization and reduction in the cost of feed by sheep.