Abstract
Sheep meat production in the dry tropics of Mexico is low in the dry season, due to lack of forage, therefore, strategic supplementation is important to avoid weight loss in animals; The research was carried out from August 15 to December 15, 2020 in order to evaluate the productive response of pelibuey sheep in confinement, fed with pangola grass hay (GH), plains grass silage (PGS) and supplemented with commercial feed (CF) in the dry season. 16 sheep of the same weight and age were used, four treatments were evaluated in them, in a completely random design; the treatments were four levels of supplement 0, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 kg of AC fed with HP and PGS. Sheep were dewormed at the beginning of the experiment and housed in individual cages. The variables were: dry matter intake, daily weight gain (DWG) and DM digestibility. DM consumption was different (P -1 in T1 and a higher value of 0.112 kg in T4. The apparent digestibility of the dry matter showed a difference (P
Highlights
Sheep meat production in the dry tropics of Mexico is low in the dry season, due to lack of forage, strategic supplementation is important to avoid weight loss in animals; The research was carried out from August to December 15, 2020 in order to evaluate the productive response of pelibuey sheep in confinement, fed with pangola grass hay (GH), plains grass silage (PGS) and supplemented with commercial feed (CF) in the dry season. sheep of the same weight and age were used, four treatments were evaluated in them, in a completely random design; the treatments were four levels of supplement 0, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 kg of AC fed with HP and PGS
23.00 Per diference 4.60 Maximum 0.40 Minimum centrated in Table 2, whose analysis shows highly significant differences (P < 0.01) between treatments, with a lower daily consumption of 0.364 kg per sheep in treatment 1 and a higher consumption of 0.684 kg occurred in T4
Treatment 1 was different (P < 0.05) to the dry matter (DM) consumption observed in treatments 2, 3 and 4 and, represented 77.4%, 62.7% and 53.4% of the consumption achieved in these last treatments, respectively; the treatments in which the sheep were supplemented T2, T3 and T4 were different from each other (P < 0.01), the consumption achieved in T4 being higher (P < 0.05) in 45.5% and 17.9% than the intakes observed in treatments 2 and 3, respectively, in general the treatments in which the sheep were supplemented on average were higher (P < 0.05) in 58.7% than the consumption obtained in treatment 1 (T1)
Summary
In regions with a warm climate the cattle feed on native forage, stubbles, grain and sometimes supplemente with legume pods in the tropics [3] [4], animal production is low, a situation caused by the seasonality of rainfall which, in periods of low water where the availability of native forages decreases drastically, in turn, generates variations in the growth, production and quality of the forage, used for feeding livestock, which causes that the animals do not consume the quantity or quality of food required for maintenance and production, having losses in weight gain and milk production [5] [6]. In most ruminant producing tropical areas, they suffer nutritional stress either temporarily or permanently the most common deficiency in forages is energy; it has been mentioned that one of the main problems, limiting the productivity of cattle, under grazing conditions, is the protein deficiency in the forage, in the dry season, since 22% to 49% of the Tropical forages are deficient in this nutrient [7] [8]
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