Performance, Carcass Traits and Meat Quality Evaluation of Sheep Fed Diets Containing Napier Grass and Graded Levels of Cocoa Pod Husk with Soursop Pulp Meals

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine performance, carcass traits and meat quality evaluation of sheep fed napier grass and different proportion of cocoa pod husk and soursop pulp meals. Eighteen (18) West African Dwarf rams, aged between 7 and 8 months old with mean weight of 7.00 ± 0.55kg were allotted to three dietary treatments with two replicates of three sheep per treatment in a completely randomized design. The compared treatment diets were; T A (70% napier grass and 30% concentrate diet), T B (45% cocoa pod husk with 25% soursop pulp and 30% concentrate diet) and T C (50% cocoa pod husk with 20% soursop pulp and 30% concentrate diet). The experimental diets were given to the sheep at 6% of their body weight and the experiment lasted for 84days after 14days of adjustment period. The results showed that average daily feed intake (221.79g), nitrogen intake (18.02g/day), total nitrogen loss (5.08g/day) and chilling losses (12.85%) were significantly (P < 0.05) higher in diet T A compared with diets T B and T C . Treatment diet T C was significantly (P < 0.05) better ISSN 2166-0379 2017 http://jas.macrothink.org 75 in total body weight gain (3.66kg), average daily weight gain (43.57g), total digestible nutrient (74.69%), nitrogen retention (77.58%, slaughter weight (11.02kg), hot carcass weight (5.68kg), cold carcass yields (5.23kg), hot with cold carcass yields (51.54 and 47.46%), appearance (6.81), tenderness (6.20) and overall acceptability (6.85) than other treatment diets. Initial body weight, flavor and juiciness were not significantly (P > 0.05) affected by the treatment diets. It was concluded that 50% cocoa pod husk with 20% soursop pulp and 30% concentrate diet has the potential to enhance performance, carcass traits and meat quality evaluation in sheep. Journal of Agricultural Studies

Potential of a new seed propagated elephant grass cultivar for lignocellulosic bioethanol production via alkaline pretreatment

“…Such scarcity can be explained by expensive equipment and materials required to perform such analyses, which are not available in most countries. In addition, compositional characterization is generally performed focusing on nutrition and agricultural parameters that allow inference regarding the use of such grass for animal feed, including protein and dry matter yield (NYAMBATI et al, 2010;OKORUWA & OKUNLOLA, 2017). Furthermore, countries that have facilities and materials to perform such analyses are more interested in the characterization of obtained cellulosic fiber from elephant grass.…”