PERFORMANCE EVALUATION AND COST IMPLICATION OF WEST AFRICAN DWARF BUCKS ON FIVE HOUSING PATTERNS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51791/njap.vi.7525Keywords:
WAD bucks, cost, hosing patterns, performanceAbstract
An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of five novel housing patterns on growth performance, carcass characteristics of WAD goats and the cost of building these structures. Five housing patterns designated T1CH, T2ZH, T3MH, T4BH and T5TH were erected and served as treatments (T1 - T5). Twenty West African dwarf bucks were divided into five (5) groups of four animals each. Each group was assigned to one of the five treatments (housing pattern) in a completely randomized design. The experiment lasted 56 days. Data on growth parameters and cost was collected. Investigations revealed that housing patterns significantly (P < 0.05) affected weight gain (1.06, 1.58, 0.99, 1.38 and 1.40kg for T1CH – T5TH
respectively).Feed intake (1945.00, 1957.00, 1934.00, 1934.00 and 1954.00g for T1 – T5 respectively). Feed conversion ratio (1.83, 1.24, 1.95, 1.47 and 1.59 for T1CH, T2ZH, T3MH, T4BH and T5TH respectively). There were significant (P < 0.05) differences among treatments for the parameters on cost analysis except cost of feed consumed and output/unit cost of housing. On the average, bamboo housing pattern (T4BH) comparatively yielded lower cost in all the parameters and also had the best output/unit cost. It can be concluded that goats on bamboo housing pattern (T4BH) performed better and can easily be adopted by small holder farmers.
