Effect of concentrate feed supplementation on performance of indigenous grazing sheep

Abstract

Sheep may not receive enough nutrition by grazing poor pastures, particularly during the dry season. Supplementing concentrate feed may be a useful approach to maximize rumen microbial activity by providing a balanced amount of energy and protein. Thus, the experiment was carried out to optimize the supplementation of concentrate feed for native coastal sheep in southwest Bangladesh. Five treatment groups consisting of twenty female sheep each were randomly assigned to receive five different degrees of concentrate feed. A randomized complete block design (RCBD) was the basis for the experimental setup. The five treatment groups were assigned a concentrate mix of 0, 100, 150, 200, and 250 g sheep^-1 day^-1, respectively. The energy and crude protein content of the concentrate mixture were 12.00MJ and 219.0g kg DM^-1. Every day, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., all groups of sheep were permitted to graze for ten hours. Before allowing them to concentrate feeding and grazing, empty body weight measurements were recorded every two weeks. The results revealed that body weight increased with increasing concentrate feed supplementation but the mean difference did not vary significantly. In most of the cases, the numerically highest body weight was observed in sheep fed concentrate @ 250g sheep^-1 day^-1. The growth rate varied significantly among different concentrate supplemented group only at the sixth and eighth weights and at other weights the growth rate was statistically similar which indicates that the nutrient requirements was almost fulfilled from the grazing