Effect of feeding various roughage based processed complete rations on growth performance and carcass characteristics in growing ram lambs

A Sudheer Babu, D Srinivasa Rao*, D Nagalakshmi** and Y Ramana Reddy***

Dairy Cattle Nutrition Division, National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana-132001, India
bakasudheer@gmail.com
* Department of Animal Nutrition, College of Veterinary Science, S. V. Veterinary University, Tirupathi, Andhra Pradesh 517 502, India
** Department of Animal Nutrition, College of Veterinary Science, S. V. Veterinary University, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh 500 030, India
*** International Livestock Research Institute, Patancheru, Medak, Andhra Pradesh 502 324, India

Abstract

Three complete rations (SS, MS and SSB) were formulated by including jowar stover, maize stover and an agro industrial by product sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L) Moench) bagasse respectively along with concentrate in (50:50) ratio and processed into expander extruded pellets. These rations were comparatively evaluated in 18 growing ram lambs aged 3 months (average body weight 11.9 kg) randomly allotted into three groups and fed individually for a period of 120 days.

No differences were observed in feed intake. The lambs fed on rations SS, MS and SSB grew with an average daily gain (ADG) of 70.2, 77.3 and 81.3 g, respectively and were statistically comparable. The feed conversion efficiency (kg/kg gain) was also similar among groups and ranged between 9.5 to 10.1. There were no differences with regard to dressing percentage, proportion of lean, bone, fat and edible and inedible organs, wholesale cuts and organ weights among the lambs. The fat proportion was higher in ram lambs fed MS ration compared to SS or SSB ration. The results indicate that sweet sorghum bagasse can be utilized at 50% level in complete ration as expander extruded pellets without affecting the growth performance and carcass characteristics in ram lambs.

Key words: expander extruded pellets, sweet sorghum bagasse, sheep, Sorghum bicolor (L) Moench

Introduction

Feed and fodder scarcity is a major limiting factor in developing countries resulting in low productivity, poor growth and reproduction of animals (Krishnamoorthy and Moran, 2011). Every year livestock output worth 162 billion rupees (sheep 4.7 billion rupees) is lost due to inadequate feeding and nutrition (Birthal et al 2005). Currently in India, there is a deficit of feed resources to the tune of 7.58%, 56.73% and 30.37% for dry roughages, green grasses and concentrates respectively (Ramachandra et al 2007). The high demand for animal products could only be met in a sustained manner through the efficient use of crop residues and unconventional feed resources that do not compete with human food (Makkar, 2003).

Sweet sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L) Moench] a C4 crop plant, is a fourth major cereal crop of the world in production and fifth in acreage after wheat, rice, maize and barley. After Sudan, India is the 2^nd largest sorghum grower in the world with (8.45 m ha) and 3^rd third largest producer after USA and Nigeria with 7.15 m tons (FAO 2007). It is well adapted to the semi arid tropics and is one of the most efficient dry land crops to convert atmospheric CO₂ into sugar (Schaffert and Gourley, 1982). The crop is more water-use efficient than sugar cane and is recently gaining importance as a feedstock for ethanol production (Reddy et al 2005). Sweet sorghum provides grain for human consumption and fodder from stover to livestock (Shukla et al 2006). The selling of sweet sorghum stover to distilleries after grain harvest is diverting biomass away from livestock worsening problem of feed scarcity. Recycling of the bagasse residue remaining after extraction of juice from stems, for ethanol production which are mechanically stripped from the stem at the distillery, could compensate for some of the fodder loss. This in turn can form an economical source of roughage for feeding ruminants, providing additional source of revenue in the sweet sorghum value chain (Blümmel et al (2009).

In this context the present study was taken up to compare the utilization of bagasse from sweet sorghum an agro industrial by product, with roughages from cereal crop residues (sorghum stover and maize stover) at 50% level in growing ram lambs.

Materials and Methods

Site of study  

Study had been taken up at the Department of Animal Nutrition, College of Veterinary Science, S.V. Veterinary University, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad, India. Sorghum stover, maize stover and other required concentrate ingredients were procured from the local traders of Medak and Rangareddy districts of Andhra Pradesh. Sweet sorghum bagasse was procured from decentralized crushing unit of ICRISAT, Patancheru, Medak, Andhra Pradesh.

Experimental rations

The three complete diets (SS, MS and SSB) were prepared by using different roughages i.e. sorghum stover , maize stover and sweet sorghum bagasse at 50% level along with the concentrate ingredients (Table 1) and ground to pass through 8 mm sieve in a hammer mill and the mash obtained was subjected to expander extruder processing. The bulk density (Table 2) of the expander extruded pellets was estimated by using one cubic foot wooden box designed for this purpose.

Growth trial, animals and experimental design

Eighteen ram lambs aged 3 months with an average body weight of 11.9 kg were randomly allotted to the 3 diet groups, 6 animals each in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD). All the lambs were dewormed and vaccinated against enterotoxaemia prior to initiation of the study and maintained in well ventilated individual pens (4mx3m) with facilities for individual feeding and watering. The processed diets were offered ad lib twice daily at 8.00 and 14.00 h during the experiment period. Clean drinking water was made available ad lib throughout the study, for the experimental animals. Daily feed intake and fortnightly body weights for two consecutive days in the morning before feeding and watering were recorded throughout the 120 days of experimentation. 

Analytical procedures

Feed ingredients were analyzed for N using ‘Turbotherm’ and ‘Vapodest’ (Gerhardt, Germany) analyzer based on the principle of Micro-Kjeldahl method (AOAC, 1997; procedure no. 4.2.0.2.). Calcium was estimated as per the method described by Talapatra et al (1940). Phosphorus was estimated by UV-Vis spectrophotometry as per the method of Ward and Johnston (1962). Fiber fractions were analyzed as per the method described by Van Soest et al (1991).

Slaughtering procedure and carcass measurements

After growth trial, 9 sheep, three from each group were randomly selected to study the carcass characteristics. Animals were slaughtered by "Halal method" after starving overnight. The live weights before slaughter were recorded. The sticking, legging, dressing and evisceration were performed as per the procedures described by Gerrard (1964).Weight of hot carcass, different wholesale cuts, edible (liver, heart, testes, diaphragm, kidney and spleen) and non-edible (blood, lungs, trachea, stomach and intestines) offal’s were recorded. The weight of fat, muscle and bone of each trimmed cut were recorded separately from left side of the carcass. The carcass was then divided into five cuts i.e. leg, loin, rack, shoulder & neck, and fore shank & brisket as suggested by the National Livestock and Meat Board of USA (Brandly et al 1968). The weights of the different whole sale cuts were recorded separately and expressed as % carcass weight.

Statistical analysis

The experimental data were subjected to least square analysis of variance (Snedecor and Cochran 1968) and the treatment means were tested for significance by Duncan's multiple range test (1955).

Results and Discussion

Bulk density, Growth rate and feed efficiency

Ration SS had higher bulk density (Table 2) in comparison to SSB and MS diet. Kundu et al 1995, stated that the bulk density of ruminant feeds i.e. fibrous roughages such as hay, bagasse and paddy straw ranged from 50-75 kg/m³ to approximately 500 kg/m³ for the ground ingredients of concentrate feeds. Parra and Escobar (1985) reported the bulk density of air dried sorghum stover and sugarcane bagasse as 50-100 and 120-170 kg/m³, respectively. Inclusion of the processed roughage and concentrate feed ingredients at 50:50 level produced a higher degree of densification compare to the bulk density of sole roughage in the present study. Moreover the SSB ration has comparable bulk density with that of SS ration.

There was no difference with regard to feed intake (kg /day), final body weight, average daily gain (ADG), feed conversion ratio (FCR) (Table 3) among the diet groups. In another study Dhore et al (2007) concluded that sorghum straw could be successfully incorporated in the pelleted complete diet of goats with an average weight gain of 66 g/day. Blümmel et al (2009) reported similar live weight gain (LWG) in bulls fed with the sweet sorghum bagasse plus stripped leaf based blocks and those fed on sorghum stover based commercial feed block. Babiker et al (2009) reported that the sugarcane bagasse based complete diet pellets improved the FCR and attributed to the absence of selective feeding by lambs (Church and Kellems, 1998; Beardsley, 1964). Dhage et al (2008) reported that unconventional feeds i.e. green Dhaincha ( Sesbania aculeata ) and Lucerne ( Medicago sativa ) fed to lambs at 50% level showed higher feed conversion efficiency compared to 25 or 75% levels inclusion in complete rations.

Cost of feeding

The cost of feed/ 100 kg and per kg weight gain was lower for SSB diet (Table 3) due to lower cost of feed and better FCR. This was in agreement with Patel et al (2004) findings who reported lower feed cost, feed cost / kg gain and feed cost / kg dressed weight in weaner lambs due to use of cheaper non conventional ingredients. Nagalakshmi and Narsimha Reddy, (2010) have reported cost of feeding / kg milk production to be lower when expander extruded pellet complete diet containing sugarcane bagasse was fed to Murrah buffaloes. Similarly, Reddy et al (2002) reported that the cost of feed/kg gain was reduced due to expander extruder pelleted complete diet containing sugarcane bagasse in Ongole bull calves. Similar results of reduced cost per kg gain on processed diets were reported in sheep (Bush et al 1978) and calves (Reddy and Reddy 1999; Reddy et al 2002). This may be due to efficiency of feed and low cost of processed complete diets due to incorporation of cheaply available unconventional feeds.

Slaughter studies

The dressing percentage either on live weight or empty body weight basis among the various treatment groups were similar Table 4. Similarly, Urbaniak et al (2000) reported that sheep (Black-headed Mutton sheep x Polish Merino crossbred rams) fed with varied energy levels of complete pelleted mixtures had comparable dressing percentage or morphological composition of the carcass.

Costa et al (2008) recommended complete rations containing 50% roughage and 50% concentrate for raising Saanen goats to be slaughtered around 22 kg of live weight, for economical carcass production which was similar to the pre slaughter weight of the lambs recorded in the present study. Reddy et al (2005) reported that pelleted complete diet containing pressure cooked rapeseed meal subjected to expander extrusion showed higher dressing percentage and proportion of lean in Nellore ram lambs when compared with conventional form of diet feeding.

Slaughter study recorded no difference among the three treatment groups for the edible portion (%), non-edible portion (%), their ratio and proportion of meat and bone. The fat percent in carcass of ram lambs fed with maize stover based expander extruded pellets (MS) was higher than in lambs fed with SS or SSB. The reason for higher fat per cent in the carcass was unknown and might be due to individual animal variation. Krishna Mohan and Charyulu (1983) studied carcass characteristics of Nellore brown sheep and reported no difference in proportion of meat and bone carcass between groups given complete rations containing various proportions of oats to concentrate.

There was no difference in weights of organs (Table 5) and whole sale cuts (Table 6) on % pre slaughter weight basis and in proportion of the different whole sale cuts.

Nagi et al (2006) reported that paddy straw based complete diets fed in Deccani lambs showed higher dressing percentage, bone meat ratio and non-edible to edible ratio when compared to conventional diet (concentrate mixture and roughage fed separately) and with no difference in wholesale cuts and concluded that paddy straw incorporated in complete diets improved the various carcass characteristics.

Conclusion

• It can be concluded that sweet sorghum bagasse a newer, cheaper non conventional roughage source, could be utilized at 50% level (replacing jowar stover and maize stover) in complete ration processed with expander extruder without affecting the performance and carcass characteristics in ram lambs.

References

Association of Official Analytical Chemists International 1997 Official Methods of Analysis, 16th edition. AOAC, Arlington, VA, USA. 

Babiker Z A, Mukhtar Amir M S and El Khidir O A 2009 Feedlot performance of sudan baggara bulls fed pelleted and unpelleted bagasse based diets Pakistan Journal of Nutrition 8: 384-387. 

Beardsley D W 1964 Symposium of forage utilization: nutritive value of forage as affected by physical form Part 2. Beef cattle and sheep studies. Journal of Animal Science 23: 239-245.  http://www.journalofanimalscience.org/content/23/1/23

Birthal P S, Jha A K and Pal S 2005 Agenda for livestock research Memo. National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, New Delhi, India. 

Blummel M, Rao S S, Palaniswami S, Shah L, Belum Reddy V S 2009 Evaluation of sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.Moench) used for bio- ethanol production in the context of optimizing whole plant utilization. Animal Nutrition and Feed Technology, 9, 1–10. 

Brandly P J, George Migaki and Kenneth E Taylor 1968 Meat hygiene. 3rd edition, Lea and Febiger, Philadelphia, USA 

Bush R S, MacIntyre T M and Nicholson J W G 1978 Pelleted grower, finisher rations for lambs.  Canadian Journal of Animal Science 58: 571-577.  http://pubs.aic.ca/doi/pdf/10.4141/cjas78-075

Church D C and Kellems R O 1998 High Energy Feedstuffs. In Kellems, R O and Church D C (Eds.) Livestock Feeds and Feeding. 4th Ed. Prentice Hall, New Jersey, USA. 

Costa R G, Medeiros A N de, Santos N M dos, Cruz S E S B S, Silva R G da, Melo L S de and Madruga M S 2008 Quality of the Saanen goat carcass feeding with different levels of roughage and concentrated  Archivos Latinoamericanos de Produccion Animal 16: 2, 78-83 

Dhage S A, Kamble S S, Fernandes A P, Jadhav B S and Jagtap D Z 2008 Feed conversion efficiency and carcass traits of Deccani lambs fed on dhaincha (Sesbania aculeata) and Lucerne (Medicago sativa) Journal of Maharashtra Agricultural Universities. 2008. 33: 3, 411-412  

Dhore R N, Khune R K, Shital Chonde and Dhok A P 2007 Performance of goats fed sorghum straw based pelleted complete ration. Indian Journal of Animal Research. 2007. 41: 4, 274-277 

Duncan D B 1955 Multiple range and multiple F-tests. Biometrics. 11:1-42. 

Gerrard F 1964 Meat Technology 3^rd edition. Leonard Hell Ltd., London  

Krishna Mohan D V G and Charyulu E K 1983 Studies on growth, nutrient utilization and carcass characteristics in lambs fed rations having different proportions of concentrate to roughage. Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 53: 1228-1233 

Krishnamoorthy U and Moran J 2011 Rearing young ruminants on milk replacers and starter feeds. FAO Animal Production and Health Manual No. 13. Rome. 

Kundu S S, Favier J F , Sharma D D, Gupta P D, Raj Reddy M and Pachauri V C 1995 Densification of Roughage. Handbook for Straw Feeding Systems Kiran Singh and J B Schiere (Eds.), 1995 ICAR, New Delhi, India  

Makkar H P S 2003 Sustainable animal production through efficient utilization of unconventional feed resources: what we should measure? Proceedings of 4th Asian buffalo congress, New Delhi, 25-28 Feb, 2003. Pp. 103-115 

Nagalakshmi D and Reddy D N 2010 Effect of feeding expander extruder processed complete diet containing sugarcane bagasse on performance of Murrah buffaloes Animal Nutrition and Feed Technology 10:1-8  

Nagi P R S, Reddy D N, Nagalakshmi  D, Reddy Y R and Raghunandan T 2006 Effect of paddy straw particle size on carcass characteristics of lambs fed complete diets. Indian Journal of Small Ruminants 12: 2, 146-151 

Parra R and Escobar A 1985 Use of fibrous agricultural residues in ruminant feeding in Latin America. In: Preston, T.R., Kossila, V.L., Goodwin, J. and Reed, R.J.S. (eds), Better Utilization of Crop Residues and By-Products in Animal Feeding. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy, pp. 81 -98 

Patel K M, Patel K S, Wadhwani K N, Parnerkar S, Pandya P R and Patel A M 2004 Comparative Growth Performance of Weaner Lambs on Non-conventional Based Ration under Intensive Production System Vol. 6, No 5 pp: 860-864 International Journal of Agriculture and Biology 

Ramachandra K S, Taneja V K, Anandan S and Angadi 2007 Livestock feed resources in different agro ecosystems of India: availability, requirement and their management. National Institute of Animal Nutrition and Physiology, Bangalore, India, pp.100 

Reddy G V N and Reddy M R 1999 Effect of feeding extruded complete diet containing maize cobs in Ongole bull calves. Indian Journal of Animal Nutrition 16:210-214. 

Reddy G V N, Reddy J K and Nagalakshmi D 2002 Effect of expander-extruder processed complete diet containing sugarcane bagasse on growth and nutrient utilization in Ongole bull calves. Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 72(5):406-409. 

Reddy G V N, Wilhelmina P D and Reddy M S 2005 Title Effect of rapeseed meal based expander extruder processed complete diets on milk & meat production in field conditions Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 75:1, 74-76. 

Schaffert R E and Gourley L M 1982 Sorghum as energy source. Pp 605-623. In: Proceedings of the International symposium on sorghum, Nov 2-7, 1981, Patancheru, India. 

Shukla G K, Gupta S K, Singh L, Rao S S, Rathavathi C V and Dayakar Rao B 2006 Successful pilot production of bio-ethanol from sweet sorghum in sub-tropical India. Jowar Samachar 2:1. 

Snedecor G W and W G Cochran 1968 Statistical Methods. 6th Edn. Oxford and IBH publishers, New Delhi. 

Talapatra S K, Roy S C and Sen K C 1940 The analysis of mineral constituents in biological materials. Estimation of phosphorus, chlorine, calcium, manganese, sodium and potassium in foodstuffs. Indian Journal Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry 10: 243. 

Urbaniak M, Potkan’ski A, Frankiewicz A, Przybecka I and Matyniak J 2000 Productivity and body composition of Black-headed Mutton sheep × Polish Merino crossbred rams fed complete pelleted mixtures with different energy concentrations. Journal of Animal and Feed Sciences Vol. 9 No. 4 pp. 605-614. 

Van Soest P J, Robertson J D and Lewis B A 1991 Methods for dietary fibre, neutral detergent fibre non-starch polysaccharides in relation to animal nutrition. Journal of Dairy Science 74: 3583–3597.  http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0022-0302/PIIS0022030291785512.pdf

Ward G M and Johnston F B 1962 Chemical methods of plants analysis. Publ.1064. Research Branch, Canada, Department of Agriculture. 

Received 5 April 2013; Accepted 23 April 2013; Published 1 May 2013

Go to top