INFLUENCE OF GRAZING NATURAL VEGETATION DURING RAINY SEASON ON PERFORMANCE OF RED SOKOTO BUCKS

Abstract

The study was conducted to look into the effects of supplementing rainy season grazing of Red Sokoto bucks (RSB) with four protein sources (cottonseed cake, cowpea husk, Piliostigma reticulatum pods and soybean hulls) and three energy sources; maize offal, rice offal and wheat offal were used in a completely randomized design, with four treatments replicated three times were randomly allocated into four (4) treatment diets containing varied inclusion levels of soybean hulls. Supplement 1 served control diet, while 2, 3, and 4 contained varied levels of soybean hulls at 15.00, 22.50 and 30%
respectively. Animals were offered their respective supplements at 400g per head per day (200g each in the morning and evening) and thereafter allowed to graze the available forages. The result showed that daily supplement intake (DSI) and total supplement dry matter intake (TSDMI) were not affected (p>0.05) by the dietary treatments. Daily weight gain – DWG (p>0.05), total weight gain – TWG (p>0.05) were similar among treatments. Also, initial live weight (ILW), final live weight (FLW) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were not affected across the treatments, but treatment four had higher final live weight, total weight gain and better feed conversion ratio. It was concluded that feeding 30% of soybean hulls improved performance of Red Sokoto bucks. Based on the present study it could be recommended that inclusion of 30% of soybean hulls being best formulation could be used for feeding Red Sokoto bucks especially when grazing natural vegetation.