THE INFLUENCE OF COPPER SUPPLEMENTATION ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND RUMEN FERMENTATION PARAMETERS OF WEST AFRICAN DWARF SHEEP

Abstract

Addition of copper in the diet has been proved to be beneficial to micro flora enhancing rumination. Hence, this study was designed to evaluate the influence of copper glycine (Cu-G) on growth performance and rumen fermentation parameters of West African dwarf (WAD) sheep fed diets containing graded levels of Cu-G supplementation; incorporated into the concentrate diet at 0, 5, 10 and 15 mg/kg respectively to formulate four (4) experimental diets. A total of sixteen (16) WAD sheep were randomly allotted to 4 dietary treatments for 84 days with 4 animals per treatment in a completely randomized design having an average live weight of 13.00 ± 2.00 kg. Data were collected on growth performance and rumen fermentation parameters. Body weights were measured at the end of each week and the rumen fluid collection was carried out at the end of the experiment. Results revealed that there was no significant (p>0.05) difference on the growth performance parameters across the dietary treatments. The final weight gain, metabolic weight, total feed intake and feed conversion ratio values obtained in this study ranged from 22.16-24.85 kg, 27.39-36.64 g/dw0.75, 508.22-556.96 g/d and 4.96-6.84 respectively. The rumen fermentation parameters was not significantly (p>0.05) influenced by Cu-G supplementation except total fungi count (TFC), total coliform count (TCC) and protozoan count which ranged from 1.29-1.49×103cfu/ml, 2.23- 2.48×102cfu/ml and 2.25-2.72×105cfu/mlrespectively. Furthermore, the TFC, TCC and protozoan
values obtained in this study increased across the dietary treatments as the Cu-G supplementation increased. Sheep fed 5, 10 and 15 mg/kg recorded the highest values for TCC, TFC and protozoan count obtained in this study. It can therefore be concluded that copper glycine included in diet at 15 mg/kg inclusion level had the highest microbial count in the rumen environment thereby positively influencing ruminal fermentation but had no influence on the growth performance of the West African dwarf sheep.