Performance of sheep fed soybean stover and cassava crumb based diets

Abstract

A digestibility study was conducted with West African dwarf (WAD) sheep offered four varieties of soybean stovers (SBS) basal diets, TGx 1019-2EN (SBS1), TGx 1448-2E (SBS2), TGx 1660-19F (SBS3) and TGx 932-2E (SBS4) and a growth study with WAD sheep offered three varieties of soybean stovers SBS1, SBS2 and SBS3 incorporated into three diets such that the roughage source in the diet was a 50:50 mixture of stover and hay supplemented with 15% cassava crumb to investigate feed intake, digestibility and body weight change. In Experiment 1, similar ( p>0.05) mean voluntary dry matter intake (VDMI) (37.32±2.19 g kg −1 BW 0.75 day −1) observed for sheep fed SBS1, SBS2 and SBS3 was higher ( p<0.05) than 31.59±2.19 g kg −1 BW 0.75 day −1 of SBS4. Crude protein intake pattern was identical to that of N-intake and the similar ( p>0.05) DM mean N-intake (0.68±0.04 g kg −1 BW 0.75 day −1) of SBS1, SBS2 and SBS4 was higher ( p<0.05) than 0.44±0.04 g kg −1 BW 0.75 day −1) of SBS3, although 0.47±0.02 g kg −1 BW 0.75 day −1 N-retained by sheep fed SBS2 was significantly ( p<0.05) higher than N-retained values of other SBS. Crude protein digestibility (CPD) value (73.46±3.08%) of sheep fed SBS2 was also higher ( p<0.05) than the similar ( p>0.05) mean (61.32±3.08%) CPD value of sheep fed SBS1 and SBS4 while sheep fed SBS3 recorded the least ( p<0.05) CPD value of 34.08±3.08%. Also, neutral detergent fibre digestibility (NDFD) value (64.64±5.90%) of sheep fed SBS2 was higher ( p<0.05) than the similar ( p>0.05) mean NDFD value (49.02±5.90%) of sheep fed SBS1, SBS3 and SBS4. In Experiment 2, average VDMI of sheep fed diet I (54.58±1.93 g kg −1 BW 0.75 day −1) was higher ( p<0.05) than the corresponding mean VDMI (48.41±1.93 g kg −1 BW 0.75 day −1) of sheep fed diets 2 and 3. Similar mean dry matter digestibility (DMD) value (68.25±1.89%) of sheep fed diets 1 and 3 was higher ( p<0.05) than DMD value (56.68±1.89%) of diet 2. N-retained as percentage of N-intake (g kg −1 BW 0.75 day −1) of sheep fed diet 1 (78.83±2.58) was higher ( p<0.05) than (64.49±1.58) of diet 2 and (61.3±2.58) of diet 3 was the lowest ( p<0.05). Blood glucose (Mg 100 ml −1 serum) (46.00±3.13) of sheep fed diet 1 was higher ( p<0.05) than the similar ( p>0.05) mean value (30.50±3.13) of diets 2 and 3. Also, sheep fed diet 1 recorded growth rate (g day −1) (18.68±0.16) which was higher ( p<0.05) than 15.38±0.16 of sheep fed diet 3 and sheep fed diet 2 recorded the lowest ( p<0.05) growth rate of 10.99.