Forty 76 weeks old Olympia Black layers were randomly selected, individually caged and intensively reared for a period of 16 weeks to study the effect of body weight on some egg production traits. The analysis of variance revealed significant effect of body weight on production traits investigated (P<0.01) except egg index (P>0.05). The correlation analysis showed that the body weight was positively and non-significantly (P>0.05) correlated with egg length, egg breadth, she'll weight, yolk weight, albumen weight, she'll thickness and significantly with egg weight (P<0.01) and negatively with egg index (r = 0.016). The second-degree (quadratic) equations for estimates of optimum 76 week body weights suggested 1.271 to 1.801 as required body weight range in kilograms for satisfactory performance. The body weight range at this age is attainable through breeding, good feeding and other management practices.
A feeding trial was conducted to assess the response of West African Dwarf sheep to differently processed corncob meal based-diets. Sun-dried corncobs were collected at Teaching and Research farm of Federal University of Technology, Akure, treated with water, lye, urea, poultry litter and fermented for twenty-one (21) days. Five experimental diets were formulated and contained five differently treated corncob meals as follow: A (untreated corncob), B (water-treated corncob), C (lye-treated corncob), D (urea-treated corncob) and E (poultry litter-treated corncob). These processed corncob meals were incorporated as basal ingredients at 45% level. Thirty (30) WAD sheep (3 males and 3 females per treatment) were fed the five diets in a completely randomized design and the experiment lasted for sixty three (63) days. Dry matter intake, digestibility, nitrogen retention, weight gain and feed/gain ratio were significantly (P<0.05) influenced by the inclusion of differently processed corncob meal in the diets. The highest crude protein (CP) intake, CP digestibility, nitrogen retention and feed/gain ratio values were recorded for sheep fed ensiled poultry litter-treated corncobs (diet D) and significantly (P<0.05) differed from values recorded for sheep fed other diets. The haematological indices were not significantly (P>0.05) influenced by the treatment except haemoglobin concentration. The results revealed that the inclusion of water, lye, urea, and poultry litter treated corncob meal in the sheep diets could satisfy the dietary protein and energy requirements of the sheep.
One hundred and ninety two records were taken weekly for twenty four (24) weeks from West African Dwarf (WD), the Yankasa (YN) and the West African Dwarf X Yankasa crossbred (XB) sheep. The traits evaluated were milk yield (MK), linear body measurements (LB) such as height at withers, (HT), body length (BL), heart girth (HG), shoulder width (SW), Tail length (TA), Neck length (NL), Neck circumference (NC), Face length (FA), Hind leg length (HL), Foreleg length (FL), Face length (FA), Ear length (EA), Head width (HW) and Rump height (RH) together with the following Udder dimensions (UD): Udder circumference (UC), Teat length (TL) and Teat circumference (TC). There was significant (P<0.05) influence of genotype on MK, WHT, HT, BL, TA, FL, HL, FA, EA and RH. The WD ewes produced more milk than either the YN or XB enes. Average daily milk yield (ml) was 122.25, 90.88 ana 108.8. The YN genotype was superior in all LBs except SW and NC than the WD and XB in the three genotypes. Height at withers was 59.08, 69.21 and 61.81 cm; BL 48.54, 55.08 and 54.49 cm and RH 62.88, 75.11 and 68.46 cm for WD, YN and XB enes respectively. Since milk offtake is related to body weight and some linear body measurements, selection for WT, HG, SW, NL NC, UC and TL in WD ewes could lead to higher milk and mutton production.
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