Abstract:
The experiment was carried out from October, 2010_ February, 2011 at Bure Agricultural,
Technical, Vocational Educational and Training College (BATVETC), West Gojjam,
Ethiopia. The objectives of the study were to determine intake, digestibility and body
weight change of Washera lambs. Twenty growing male Washera lambs with initial body
weight of 17.12 ±1.34 kg (mean ± SD) and approximately seven to nine month old were
used. The weight of animals ranges IS - 21 kg. The experimental design used for all
parameters was randomized complete block design. The experimental sheep were blocked
based on their initial body weight into five blocks of four animals and randomly assigned
to one of the four treatment diets within a block. The treatments were hay alone (T1), hay
67% + sugar cane tops 33% (T2), hay 33% + sugar cane tops 67 % (T3) and sugar cane
tops alone (T4). The experimental diets were given ad libitum at about 25% refusal. Equal
amount of noug seed cake (NSC), (155.6 g on dry matter basis) was given for all sheep.
Clean water and common salt were available during the experiment. The experiment
consisted of 90 days of feeding trial and seven days of digestibility trial. The total dry
matter (DM) intake were not significantly (P>0.05) different among treatments. Similarly,
DM intake per metabolic body weight and percent body weight were not significantly
different (P>0.05) among treatments. The organic matter (OM) intake among treatments
were non significant (P>0.05). The crude protein (CP) intake in T1 and T2 were
comparable, however, T4 had the lowest (P<0.05) CP intake. Lambs assigned in T1 had
significantly (P>0.05) higher neutral detergent fibre (NDF), acid detergent fibre (ADF)
and acid detergent lignin (ADL) intakes than the other groups. The apparent digestibility
coefficient of DM, OM, CP and ADF were not significantly different (P>0.05) among
treatments. T1 had the highest (P<0.05) NDF apparent digestibility as compared to the
other three treatments. Lambs on T1 and T2 gained comparable and significantly higher
(P<0.05) final body weight and average daily body weight gain than T3 and T4. However,
no significant differences (P>0.05) were observed among treatments in feed conversion
efficiency (FCE). Therefore, it was concluded that sugar cane tops could be used as the
basal feed source for growing lambs.