Cost-effectiveness of Total Mixed Ration with Varying Crude Protein Levels for Feeding Dorper Lambs for Human Consumption

Abstract

The demand for food consumption had increased by 60% due to the increase of human population, resulting in an increasing demand for sheep meat. High cost of imported feed had restricted the growth of the sheep industry. Hence, the objective of this study was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of feeding total mixed ration (TMR) in the form of creep feed (CF) and growing ration (GR) to Dorper lambs compared to the control (CON) group fed with farm routine diet consisted of Napier grass and commercial pellet. Two (2) experimental phases were conducted, i.e., Phase I (CF) and Phase II (GR), which consisted of twenty (20) Dorper lambs with five (5) lambs in each group. The CF and GR consisted of constant metabolize energy (ME) (11 MJ/kg DM ME). The crude protein (CP) (%) in CF was varied at 14, 16, 18 and 20 for CON 14, CF 16, CF 18 and CF 20 respectively, whereas the CP (%) in GR was varied at 11, 14, 16 and 18 for CON 11, GR 14, GR 16 and GR 18 respectively. The cost of feed/kg gain (RM/kg) of CON 14 (1.63) and CF 18 (1.97) was significantly lowered (p<0.05) than CF 20 (3.35) whereas, GR 16 (8.94) was significantly lowered (p<0.05) than CON 11 (22.92) and GR 18 (23.99). This finding revealed that feeding local feed ingredients in TMR form, resulting in low feeding cost and subsequently higher economic returns. It can be concluded that feeding 18% CP (CF 18) and 16% CP (GR 16) were efficient to enhance the growth performance of pre-and post-weaning Dorper lambs respectively.