Effect of supplementation of grazing sheep with groundnut cake and wheat bran

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of groundnut haulm and maize bran mixture supplementations on feed intake, digestibility, body weight gain and carcass characteristics of local sheep fed hay basal diet at Salga sheep farm in Assosa district, Western Ethiopia.The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four treatments consisting of six blocks with four animals per block based on their initial body weight of 20.12 ± 0.05 kg (mean ± SD).Treatments comprised of feeding natural pasture hay ad libitum T1 = 0; T2 = 100% maize bran (MB); T3 = 50% MB and 50% Groundnut haulm (GNH), and T4 = 100% GNH.The amount of supplements offered was 300 g/day/animal on DM basis.The daily feed intake, daily body weight gain, feed conversion efficiency, dry matter and nutrient digestibility, and carcass characteristics parameters were measured during the experimental period.The study result indicates that the crude protein (CP) contents were 7.12% and 11.6%, and the neutral detergent fiber (NDF) contents were 67.9% and 57.5% for natural grass hay and groundnut haulm, respectively.The total DM intake was higher (P < 0.001) in T4 (941 g/day) followed by T3 (937 g/day), and T2 (934 g/day).However, the control group (T1) consumed relatively higher basal dry matter (DM) (767 g/day) as compared to all other groups.Local Sheep supplemented with T4 had significantly different (P < 0.001) FBW (33.2 vs 24.3 kg), FCE (0.17 vs 0.08) and ADG (156.2 vs 46.4 g/day) as compared to the control group.The mean DM, How to cite this paper: