EFFECTS OF CORN PROCESSING ON THE BIO-PRODUCTIVE INDICES IN FATTENING THE WEANED LAMBS

Abstract

The objective of our researches was to observe the nutritive and productive effect of the ration, composed of alfalfa hay (0.8 kg/day/lamb) a nd corn (0.5 kg/day/lamb) under two processing forms, on fattening lambs. At the beginning of the experimental period, the la mbs, belonging to lurcana breed, were randomly divided into two groups; each group was made of 11 lambs. Group 1 was feed with alfalfa hay and fine ground corn at 2 mm size. Group 2 was feed with the same diet, but corn was grounded into 4 mm particles. The forage i ntake/group was registered daily, using a scale with an accuracy of 0.05 kg. Body weight evol ution was established through weighing each lamb at 98 days of age (at the beginning of th e experimental period) and at 152 days (at the end of the experimental period). Lambs from both groups ingested 0.49 UNC daily from alfalfa hay and 0.66 UNC from corn. Intestinal digestible protein consumption was 102.06 g/kg, out of which 64.43% from hay and 35.57% from corn. During the entire period, we noticed that there wer e non-significant differences between group 1 and 2 (p>0.05) regarding initial body weigh t (20.51 kg and 20.66 kg, respectively), final body weight (25.89 kg and 26.53 kg, respectiv ely), total weight gain (5.37 kg and 5.87 kg, respectively) and average daily gain (158 g and 173 g, respectively). Feed to gain ratio was 8.67% lower in lambs fed wit h 4 mm ground corn compared to those fed 2 mm ground corn. The cost per kg of weight gain is with 9.29% higher for group 1 than for group 2.