Supplementation with Different Forms of Processed Lupin (Lupinus albus) Grain in Hay Based Feeding of Washera Sheep: Effect on Feed Intake, Digestibility Body Weight and Carcass Parameters

Abstract

The digestibility and feeding trial study was conducted using twenty four intact yearling washera  sheep  with mean initial body weight of 17+ 0.81 (mean + STD).The objective of the study was to assess the effect of supplementation with different forms of processed lupin grain on feed intake, body weight (BW) change, apparent nutrient digestibility, feed conversion efficiency (FCE), carcass characteristics as well as economic return of the feeding regime in washera sheep fed a basal diet of natural pasture hay. A completely randomized block design consisting of four treatments and six blocks was used. The sheep were blocked based on their initial BW and they were randomly assigned to one of the four treatment feeds within a block. The sheep were adapted to the treatment feeds for two weeks followed by seven days of digestibility trial. The feeding trial was conducted for ninety days and carcass parameters were determined at the end of the study. The treatments consisted of adlibitum feeding of natural pasture  hay (non-supplement) and supplementation with 300 g/head/d roasted coarsely ground lupin grain, roasted soaked lupin grain  and roasted soaked coarsely ground lupin grain in DM basis. The CP and OM contents of hay used in the study were 8.75% and 91.9% on DM basis respectively. The CP contents of different forms of lupin grain,  namely, roasted coarsely ground(T₂); roasted soaked(T₃) , and roasted soaked and coarsely ground(T₄)were 30.5% ,36%  and 36.8 %  on DM basis. Non-supplemented sheep consumed higher (P<0.05) pasture hay DM (608.8 g/head/day) as compared to the supplemented treatments (464.4-519.5 g/h/d).Supplementation of T₂, T₃ and T₄ increased (P<0.05) total DM (728.9-764.4) g/head/day) and crude protein (CP) (109.3-150.9 g/head/day) intake.  Similarly supplementation improved (P<0.05) the apparent digestibility coefficient of DM (0.69), OM (0.7-0.71) and CP (0.81-0.89.)  Sheep Supplemented with T2, T3 and T4 gained weight of 34.1, 54.3 and 63.7g/day while those non supplemented gains only slightly (5.7g/day). Moreover, dressing percentage on slaughter weight basis, hot carcass weight, rib eye muscle area were higher (P<0.05) for supplemented sheep than the control. In general, supplementation improved feed intake, body weight gain, nutrient digestibility and carcass characteristics and its effect was more pronounced in sheep supplemented T4 than in the other treatments. Results from this study suggested that supplementation with roasted soaked and coarsely ground lupin grain showed better nutrient utilization, response in live weight gains and carcass parameters in washera sheep and returned the highest net profit compared to the other forms of the grain.

Keywords: carcass, feed conversion efficiency, processed lupin grain, weight gain  Introduction