COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF YANKASA RAMS FED RICE HUSK ENSILED WITH POULTRY LITTER AND GRADED LEVEL OF DOUM PALM PULP

Abstract

Livestock production in Nigeria faces challenges with feeding due to the high cost and scarcity of quality feed ingredients. Ruminant animals rely on poor quality crop residues as feed, and rice husk, while abundant, is of low quality due to high levels of ligno-cellulose, silica, and anti-nutritional factors. Therefore, The experiment was conducted to investigate the cost benefit analysis of growing Yankasa rams fed rice husk treated with poultry litter and graded level Doum palm pulp (DPP). Growing Yankasa rams numbering 20 were randomly allocated to five treatments in a Completely Randomized Design with four rams per treatment. Five experimental diets were formulated with 16% crude protein (CP), poultry litter 20% was ensiled with graded level of DPP at 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 and Rice husk at 80, 75, 70, 65, and 60 as diet 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 respectively along with other ingredients used included wheat offal, sorghum panicle, bone meal, salt, and potash. Data collected on Cost of ffeed/kg (/kg) = kg of feed consumed x cost/kg of feed. Cost of feed consumed/day= cost of feed/kg x feed intake. Cost of feed/kg Live Weight Gain. There is increase in the cost of supplement diet per day, with highest value recorded on T5 and least value recorded on T1. The result reveals that rams fed diet 3 had the lowest cost N 726.04 per kg live-weight gain while animals on diet 4 had the highest cost 1495.19 of live-weight gain. It is concluded that, feeding growing Yankasa rams diets containing 60% Rice husk, Doum palm pulp at 20% and 20% poultry litter will gave better growth performance and reduces the cost of production. Thus, it is conclude that the farmers can feed growing Yankasa
rams with up to 60% rice husk, Doum palm pulp at 20% and 20% poultry litter will give better performance and reduces the cost of production.