Utilization of Trimming Waste of Mandarin Trees as Feed for Small Ruminants: 3. Evaluation of Growth Performance and Carcass Traits for Barki Lambs

Abstract

Thirty weaned Barki lambs with average body weight 27.56±0.57 kg were blocked by weight and randomly distributed into three equal groups to investigate the impact of feeding trimming waste of mandarin trees (TWMT) on productive performance of lambs. The first group of animals was fed with Berseem hay (BH) plus concentrate feed mixture (CFM) without any additives and kept as a control ration (CR). The second group was fed TWMT plus CFM as untreated ration (UR), where, the animals in group three received TWMT plus CFM supplemented with Bio-Magic with level 10kg fresh matter/ton CFM and kept as a treated ration (TR). Feed was offered as 70% CFM of the total requirements for growing lambs and the roughage was offered ad lib. The results were summarized as follows:-CR group had higher digestibility than other groups. Sheep fed TR ration revealed lower TDN compared to the other groups. The DCP was significantly higher for UR and TR than CR-The CR group recorded the lowest value of Nretained however no significant differences were recorded between UR and TR groups. -The ADG for TR group increased by 4% and 15.9% compared to CR and UR, respectively.-Feed conversion was the best for lambs fed TR, while UR recorded the worst value.-The best economic efficiency recorded by TR. -It may be concluded that, TWMT has the potential solve to reduce shortage of roughage feeds for animals in Egypt; furthermore reducing feed cost under desert conditions.

Productive Performance of Barki Ewes Fed Mixtures of Salt Tolerant Plants With Protected Fat or Yeast Under Desert Conditions

“…This is mainly referred to the higher cost of BH, which was negatively reflected on the total daily feed cost of the control group and led consequently to higher feed cost. Abo Bakr, et al (2020c) reported that economic efficiency is real affected by some other factors, such as cost of feed ingredients, daily dry matter intake, animals weight gains which might be consequently reflected on the net profit returns. Investigating economic efficiency (Table 10) pointed out to insignificant higher total gain in BH group (the control), while the higher cost of PF supplement (0.9 LE) was due to protected fat supplement negatively reflected on average return income.…”