%0 Journal Article
%T Effects of Supplementing Cassava Leaf Meal, Brewers¡¯ Dried Grain and their Mixture on Body Weight Change and Carcass Traits of Local Goats Fed Urea Treated Tef Straw
%A S. Tilahun
%A G. Animut
%A M. Urge
%J Journal of Livestock Science
%D 2013
%I 
%X There is shortage of animal feed in Ethiopia, especially during the dry season. So, there is a need to look for an alternative supplementary feed to small ruminants. Twenty-four yearling intact local goats with a mean live weight of 14.57 ¡À 2.2 kg (mean ¡À SD) were used to evaluate the effect of supplementing cassava leaf meal (CLM), brewers¡¯ dried grain (BDG) and their mixture on body weight change, feed conversion efficiency and carcass characteristics of goats fed urea treated tef straw (UTTS). The experiment consisted of 90 days of feeding trial and evaluation of carcass parameters at the end. The four treatments included ad libitum feeding of urea treated tef straw and supplementation with 0g (T1), 300g cassava leaf meal (T2), 150g CLM +150g brewers¡¯ dried grain (T3) and 300g BDG (T4).The goats weights were recorded at the beginning of the experiment and thereafter every ten days interval. The experimental goats were grouped in to six blocks of four animals based on initial live weight and randomly assigned to the four treatments. The crude protein (CP) content of UTTS, CLM and BDG were 8.3, 21.9 and 24.4 %, respectively. Feed conversion efficiency differed significantly (p< 0.05) among treatments, which was higher for T3 than T1. Supplementation had no effect (p>0.05) on final body weight and average daily gain. Positive average daily gain (1.1g/d) was observed in the control treatment, whereas 14.5, 21.15, 29.8 g/d was recorded for T4, T2 and T3, respectively. Hot carcass weight and dressing percentage on slaughter weight basis was greater (p<0.05) for T2 (5.9 ¡À 1.2 and 35.8 ¡À 2.8, respectively) than T1 (4.3 ¡À 0.66 and 30.6 ¡À 1.5, respectively), while values for T1 and T4 (5.2 ¡À 0.76 and 34.2 ¡À 1.1, respectively) were similar with other treatments. Therefore, based on most performance parameters, T2 and T3 can be recommended as a better treatment in this study. This study also highlights the positive potential of CLM as a supplement to ruminants on a basal diet of fibrous feed.
%K cassava leaf
%K tef straw
%K brewer¡¯s grain
%K Carcass
%K Body Weight
%K Goats
%U ivestockscience.in/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Samuel-ethiopiaf.pdf