COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF COMMERCIAL FEEDS ON PERFORMANCES OF HARARGHE HIGHLAND SHEEP FED GRASS HAY BASAL DIET

Abstract

This study was aimed to carry out comparative evaluation of 3 commercial and 1home formulated feeds on the feed intake, digestibility, live weight gain and carcass parameters of yearling Hararghe highland sheep (HHS) with average initial body weight of 16.5 ± 2.5 kg. The experimental design was a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four treatments,each with six replications. The dietary treatments were grass hay basal diet plus supplemented with home-formulated concentrate (T1) and three commercial diets (T2,T3 and T4). The animals under all treatment fed grass hay basal diet and 350g/day of concentrate and commercial feeds. The home- formulated concentrate mixture was composed of wheat bran (WB) and noug seed cake (NSC) in the ratio of 3:1 respectively. The digestibility trial was carried out for 7 days followed by feeding trial of 90 days and carcass evaluation. Feed offered and refusals were recorded for each animal during both digestion and feeding trials whereas feces voided during digestiblity trial were recorded daily. The body weight changes of animals during the feeding trial were determined in ten days interval. This study results indicated that animals under T2 and T3 consume greater (P<0.01) amount of grass hay of (432 and 449 g/day), and total dry matter intake (DMI) of (782 and 799 g/day) respectively). Where as grass hay and total DMI of animals under T4 was the least (343 and 693 g/day), respectively while intake of animals under T1 was intermediate. The OM and CP intake of animals fed T4 was the lowest (P<0.01) as compared with animals fed the rest dietary treatment groups. The DM digestibility of animals fed on T1 was the highest (P<0.05) as compared with those fed on commercial feeds. Where as CP and OM digestibility were higher (P<0.05) for animals fed on all commercial feeds than those fed on own formulated diet. In this experiment, all types of commercial feeds had no significant effect (p>0.05) on NDF and ADF digestibility. Animals fed on T3 diets had shown better performance in ADG (80.5g/day) and FCE (0.095) than T2 fed animals (ADG: 65.7g/day and FCE: 0.079) respectively. Rams fed on control diet (T1) had shown intermediate performance in ADG and FCE whereas animals fed on T4 commercial diet had shown least performance in ADG and FCE (30.2g/day vs 0.040) respectively).On the other hand, the slaughter body weight of animals under T3 was higher (P<0.001) than T2 fed animals while those fed on T1 had intermediate SBW where as animals fed on T4 had least SBW. However, there was no significant (p>0.05) differences in total edible and non edible offal components yields for animals under all dietary treatments. Even though, all commercial feeds supplementation had significant effects (p<0.05) on feed intake, body weight change, digestibility and carcass yields, animals fed on T3 had shown the best performancess in all parameters. Therefore, from this study, T3 and T2 diets are recommended as supplementation diets for HHS with all measured parameters except NDF and ADF intake.