PERFORMANCE AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS FOR GROWING SHEEP FED UREA TREATED MAIZE STOVER SUBSTITUTING GRASS HAY ALONE/WITH CONCENTRATE-MIX

Abstract

A study was conducted using twenty intact growing lambs with 15.12.1 kg of initial body weight toevaluate the performance and Economic analyses of urea treated maize stover (UTMS) replacing grasshay (GH) basal diet alone or with concentrate mix (CM) 67%WB: 33%NSC. Treatments were T1(GH +300g of CM); T2(GH alone); T3(UTMS + 300g of CM) and T4(UTMS alone). Digestibility trial andcarcass evaluation were conducted end of feeding trial. Urea treatment improved the CP by 47% from4.8–9.11%. Supplementation improved intakes of the total dry matter (DM) (908, 607, 883, and 571g/day(SEM= 11)) and CP (132, 60, 124, and 51gm per day (SEM = 2.4) for T1, T2, T3, & T4, respectively.Apparent digestibility of CP was in order of T3 >T1 >T4>T2 (74, 73, 48 & 45%). Average DWG was98g, 8g, 103g, and 8g/day (SEM= 6.1) and hot carcass weight (HCW) was 12.3, 7.0, 12.7, and 7.6kg(SEM=0.68) for T1,T2,T3, and T4, respectively. Both ADG and HCW followed similar trend of DMIwas greater (P < 0.001) for the supplemented treatments. The NR was greater for supplemented groupthan the non-supplemented. The marginal rat of return (MRR) for two supplemented treatments werecomparable. In general, in all performance parameters and partial budget analyses results were similarbetween the supplemented groups and two non-supplemented treatments. This suggested that UTMS cancertainly replace GH whether fed alone or with supplement.