Nutrient intake and digestibility of West Africa Dwarf rams fed basal diet supplemented with multi-nutrient block

Abstract

Thirty-five (35) West African Dwarf rams (WAD) with an average weight of 13.60+0.2 kg were used to evaluate nutrient intake and digestibility of WAD rams fed basal diet supplemented with multi-nutrient block in a Completely Randomized Design. Multi-nutrient blocks were compounded containing varying levels of Corn Bran (CB) substituting Molasses (M) with CB 0:M 0 %, CB 10 %; M 20 %, CB 20 %; M 10 %, CB 30 %; M 0 % and CB 0 %: M 30 % as treatments 1,2,3,4 and 5 respectively. The trial lasted for fourteen (14) weeks. After the feeding study, the animals were allotted into metabolic cages for separate feeding, faecal and urine sample collection for digestibility trial of WAD rams. The basal diet fed was (Megathyrsus maximus). Data collected data were analyzed using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results obtained showed that multi-nutrient feed block did not significantly affect nutrient intake (p>0.05). The dry matter intake of the basal diet (Megathyrsus maximus) ranged from 278.81–326.66 g/day and varied significantly across dietary treatments (p<0.05). Multi-nutrient supplementation had a positive significant (p<0.05) effect on all nutrient digestibility parameters. The digestibility of dry matter ranged from 88.94 to 90.44 %, crude protein from 79.92 to 86.26 %, and neutral detergent fiber from 64.42 to 78.57 %. Based on this recent finding, a multi-nutrient feed block supplemented to a basal diet (Megathyrsus maximus) has no significant influence on nutrient intake but has the potential to be utilized to feed ruminants during the dry season for higher feed utilization of WAD rams