Assessment of Livestock Feed Resource and Effect of Supplementing Sweet Potato Vine Hay on Growth Performance and Feed Intake of Grazing Local Goats in Aleta Chuko District, Sidama Zone SNNPRS, Ethiopia

Abstract

Through a diagnostic survey and feeding trials (Aleta Chuko Woreda, SNNPRS), availability of common feed resources and effect of sweet potato vine hay (SPVH) and concentrate (50%wheat bran +50% noug cake) supplementation to local bucks on growth performance were assessed at farmers' management levels. Out of 150 households (HHs) interviewed it was found that natural pasture, crop residues, fodder tree and industrial by products are main feed resources; livestock are mainly kept for milk production and income but small ruminants only for income and average livestock holding per HH was 6.69 TLU. Yearling bucks (16.9 ± 3.21 kg) were assigned into four treatment diets in a RCBD design. One animal from each of four treatment diets were given to each of four farmers selected. Bucks were grazing natural pasture from 8:00 to 17:00h and supplemented with 88g concentrate (T1), 88g concentrate + 171.2 g SPVH (T2), 88g concentrate +316.9 g SPVH (T3) and 88g concentrate + 461.3 g SPVH (T4) on DM basis. Goats under T2, T3 and T4 consumed higher (p < 0.001) total DM than those of T1.

Feed Resource Availability and their Nutrient Contribution for livestock Evaluated Using Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) in Burie Zuria District, North Western Ethiopia

“…Crop residues contributed the largest portion of feed DM during the dry season which agrees with earlier report [9]. The DM contribution reported for crop residues in the current study agrees with earlier reports [48,49]. On the other hand, the DM contribution of crop residues in the current study was greater [1,6,14,32,50,51], but lower than earlier reports [11,31,52].…”

“…This might have been due to differences in variety of cultivated forages. The DM contribution of purchased feeds in the present study was comparable with the previous results reported [6,41,49], but it was higher [1,14], and lower than those earlier reported [44,53]. These differences might be due to differences in DM content of purchased feeds.…”

“…However, its contribution to overall dietary ME was quite low probably because of poor quality of crop residues due to delay at harvest and poor storages [9]. The ME contribution reported for crop residues in the current study were similar to previous result reported [45], but were higher [14,49], and lower than those results earlier reported [31]. This might be due to variations in variety of crops, amount of rainfall and soil fertility of the areas.…”

“…These differences might have been caused by variations in soil fertility, forage species and environment. The ME contribution of cultivated fodder in the present study was comparable with previous findings reported [41,48,49], but it was greater than those earlier reported by [14,40,45]; however, it was lower than other reports [39,42,49], possibly due to differences in cultivated forage varieties and forage management.…”

Gender situational analysis of the sweetpotato value chain in selected districts in Sidama and Gedeo Zones in southern Ethiopia

“…In these two regions sweetpotato roots and vines are also used as livestock feed. The feed quality of the vines is regarded as high owing to its good palatability, digestibility and high crude protein concentration (Ayele and Peacock, 2003;Negesse et al, 2016).…”