Abstract

The experiment was carried using twenty-five male intact yearling Adilo sheep with average body weight of 16.5 ± 3.5 kg to determine the effects of ensetventricosum, atella and their mixture supplements to urea treated wheat straw (UTWS) on feed intake, digestibility and body weight gain (ADG). The experiment consisted of ninety days of feeding trial and seven days of digestibility testing. The experimental design was randomized complete block design, and animals were blocked based on their initial body weights. Treatments were UTWS fed ad libitum alone (T₁) or with 300 g/d atella (T₂), 200 atella+100 g/d enset (T₃), 200 enset +100 g/d atella, (T₄) and 300 enset (T5). Results of laboratory analyses for CP (6.4, 18.2 and 7.6%) and NDF contents (72, 51 and 62%) were for UTWS, atella and enset respectively. The result revealed that UTWS intake (333, 356, 353, 349 and 340 (± 0.6) g/d), total DM intake (333, 626, 618, 609 and 595 (± 0.6) g/d), total CP intake (22, 72, 59, 53 and 42 (± 0.1) g/d) for T₁, T₂, T₃, T₄ and T₅, respectively) were greater for those supplemented than non-supplemented sheep and increased (P<0.05) with increasing level of atella in the supplement. The digestibility of DM and CP also lower (P<0.05) for T₁ compared with the other treatments, and CP digestibility for T₂ was greater than other supplemented groups. Sheep fed on supplemented feed achieved greater (P<0.05) ADG (-8.9, 47.8, 34.4, 30 and 24.4 (± 3.35) g for T₁, T₂, T₃, T₄ and T₅, respectively). The value of ADG was greater for T₂ among supplemented groups. Results of this study highlighted that supplementation of UTWS with enset and atella to have a positive effect on feed intake, digestibility and ADG. However, the effect is more profound for atella than supplementation with enset or the two mixtures (T3:14% and T4:11.7%) possibly due to the higher CP content of atella.

Keywords:Atella, digestibility, enset, intake, sheep.