Substitution of dried mulberry (Morus indica L.) leaf meal for concentrate mix on feed intake, digestibility, body weight gain and carcass characteristics of Abergelle sheep

Abstract

The study was conducted at Abergelle Agricultural Research Center, Ethiopia using 24 yearling intact male Abergelle sheep with initial body weight of 17.52 ± 1.13 kg. The objectives were to evaluate substitution of dried mulberry (Morus indica L.) leaf meal (DMLM) for concentrate mix (CM) on feed intake, digestibility, body weight gain and carcass characteristics, and to determine cost benefit analysis of the supplementary regimes. The study comprised 90 days of feeding trial, 7 days of digestibility trial and carcass evaluation at the end. Six sheep were randomly assigned to each treatment using randomized complete block design. The treatments included feeding of ad libitum natural grass hay and supplementation with 100% CM (T1); 75% CM + 25% DMLM (T2); 50% CM + 50% DMLM (T3) and 25% CM + 75% DMLM (T4) on DM basis. The supplements were prepared isonitrogenous and they were offered to meet daily CP requirements of 80.4, 95.7 and 108 g for rams with body weight of 15, 20 and 25 kg, respectively. At beginning of experiment, amount of supplements provided were 439.49, 440.51, 440.75 and 440.50 g on DM basis for T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively. The CM contained noug seed cake (NSC) and wheat bran (WB) at ratio of 19.28: 80.72, 14.14: 60.86, 9.04: 40.96 and 3.92: 21.08 for T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively. The CP content of grass hay, WB, NSC and DMLM were 7.20, 16.80, 33.40 and 20.20%, respectively. The OM, CP, NDF, ADF and ADL intakes and digestibilities were similar among treatments but, hay and total DM intakes as well as DM digestibility were significantly higher (p<0.05) in T3 than T1. Calculated ME was greater (p<0.01) in T3 and T2 than T4 but similar in T1, T2 and T3. There was no significant differences among treatments for feed conversion efficiency, final body weight, ADG and most carcass parameters measured. The partial budget analysis showed that T4 had highest economical gain. Therefore, T4 is recommended on both biologically and economically efficient supplementary regime for Abergelle sheep.

Evaluation of tree lucerne (Chamaecytisus palmensis) dried leaves as a substitution for concentrate mixture on biological performance and socioeconomic of Washera sheep fed on desho grass hay

“…In the present study, insignificant results for initial and final body weight recorded were similar to the reports of Desta et al. (2017) for Abergele rams in a study conducted to substitute local concentrate mix with dried mulberry ( Morus indica L .) leaf meal.…”

“…Similar finding was reported by Desta et al. (2017) for Abergele rams supplemented with substitution of dried mulberry ( Morus indica L.) leaf meal for concentrate mix. In the present study, the SW values were relatively heavier than the results of Dereje (2014) and Tekliye et al.…”

Substitution of mulberry leaf meal on feed intake, body weight and carcass characteristics of Tigray highland lambs

“…The organic matter digestibility coefficient obtained in the current study conforms to that of Yulistiani et al (2015) and who have been noted that 0.70 and 0.71 organic matter digestibility coefficients of mature indigenous Malin rams supplemented at 1.2% of body weight with mixture of mulberry foliage (50%) and urea-rice bran (50%) and yearling intact male Abergelle sheep respectively. The CP digestibility coefficient obtained in the present study was within the range of values (68.18-76.5%) for dried mulberry leaves included at different levels in concentrate reported in different literatures (Atiso et al 2012;T. Desta et al 2017).…”

Appraisal of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) hay as a replacement for noug seed (Guizotia abissynica) cake in the ration of Gumuz lambs in Ethiopia

“…(2019), respectively, in a different part of the country. However, the result is higher than that previously reported by Desta et al (2017) and Gulilat et al (2018) The OM contents of CSH used in the current experiment is lower than the value 90% reported by Tarekegn et al (2018). The current CP value was higher than the value 16.69 and 17.15% reported by Abebe and Tamir (2016) and Gebrekidan et al (2018), respectively.…”

“…However, the result is higher than that previously reported by Desta et al. ( 2017 ) and Gulilat et al. ( 2018 ) at 28.2; 33.4 and 30.57% of the CP content of NSC.…”