PERFORMANCE OF WEST AFRICAN DWARF RAMS FED Panicum maximum AND Tridax procumbens SUPPLEMENTED WITH Cajanus cajan LEAVES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51791/njap.vi.7223Keywords:
Panicum maximum, Tridax procumbens, Cajanus cajan leaves, WAD Rams, PerformanceAbstract
An experiment was carried out to investigated the performance of West African Dwarf growing rams fed mixture of Panicum maximum and Tridax procumbens supplemented with Cajanus cajan leaves for 56 days feeding trial at the Teaching and Research Farm, Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology, Igbo-ora, Nigeria. A total of twelve (12) WAD rams were randomly allocated to three treatments with four animals per treatment while two animals served as replicate. The experimental diet was fed at 3% body weight of individual animals while Cajanus cajan leaves supplemented at varied inclusion levels. The results revealed that animals fed T1 recorded the least weight gain (36.96g/day) while the highest weight gain (56.42¢/day) was recorded for T3, The daily weight gain of animals was significantly different across all treatments (P<0.05). The highest DMI (18.30kg) was recorded on the T1, and the least value of DMI (17.40kg) was recorded in T3, The highest feed efficiency ratio (0.18) and the lowest value (0.11) were observed in animals fedT1 and T3, diet respectively. Itcan be concluded that Cajanus cajan leaves has a good nutrient ‘profile which can be supplemented with mixture of Tridax procumbens and Panicum maximum for feeding small ruminant animals.