Digestibility and Feed Intake of Menz Sheep Fed Natural Pasture Hay Supplemented with Ameja (Hypericum quartinanum) Leaf and Noug (Guizotia abyssinica) Seed Cake

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of supplementation of different  proportion of Ameja (Hypericum quartinanum) leaf (AL) and Noug (Guizotia abyssinica) seed cake (NSC) on digestibility and  feed  intake of Menz sheep. Twenty five yearling male Menz lambs were divided based on their initial body weight (BW) and randomly assigned to treatments. Treatments were natural pasture hay (NPH) ad libitum + 150 g/day oats grain alone (T1) or with 344 g/day AL (T2), 230 g/day AL + 50 g/day NSC (T3), 112 g/day AL + 100 g/day NSC (T4) and 150 g/day NSC (T5). The supplements from AL and NSC were on iso-nitrogenous basis. The crude protein (CP) content of NPH, NSC, AL and oat grain was 6.5, 35.6, 15.1 and 9.8%, respectively. Total dry matter (DM) intake was greater for T3, T4, and T5 as compared to T1. There was significant difference among treatments in CP  intake and its digestibility differed (P < 0.001) among the  treatments but not for DM and other nutrients. Thus it is advisable to use Noug seed cake alone or Ameja/Noug seed cake combination at 67:33 proportion as protein supplement, whenever Noug seed cake is available. However, when Noug seed cake is unavailable or expensive, Ameja leaf can be used as a sole protein supplement.

Keywords: Menz Sheep, Intake, Digestibility, Ameja, Noug, Crud protein.