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Nutritional Performance of West African Dwarf Goats Fed Wild Sunflower Leaf Meal Supplemented Diet

Obafemi Awolowo University, Dept. of Animal Sciences, Nigeria

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of feeding wild sunflower (Tithonia diversifolia) as a dry season forage supplement on the growth and other nutritional parameters of West African Dwarf (WAD) goats, offered a basal guinea grass (Panicum maximum) diet.
Leafy portions and soft stems of wild sunflower forage was harvested, air- dried and ground in a hammer mill to produce a leaf meal. The wild sunflower leaf meal (WSLM) was incorporated into a concentrate diet as supplement to a basal guinea grass diet in the ratio 2:3.
Twenty WAD goats with age range of 5 - 7 months and with an average weight of 6.94 ±: 0.37 kg, were randomly allotted to a soybean based concentrate diet containing maize, palm kernel cake, groundnut cake and bone meal in graded levels of 0, 10, 20 and 30% levels of WSLM inclusion. The experiment lasted 16 weeks and parameters determined include feed intake, weight gain, digestibility, nitrogen utilisation and feed conversion ratio.

Results obtained indicate no significant difference (P>0.05) in the dry matter intake (DMI), weight gain and dry matter digestibility of the goats on the different diets. However, the crude protein digestibility and nitrogen utilisation of goats on 0% and 10% WSLM inclusion were higher (P<0.05) than those on 20% and 30% WSLM diet.

It can be concluded that wild sunflower leaf meal can serve as a forage supplement to the WAD goats up to 30% level of inclusion without any deleterious effect.

Keywords: Digestibility, dry season, nitrogen utilisation, WAD goats

Contact Address: John Odedire, Obafemi Awolowo University, Dept. of Animal Sciences, 35 Line 2 Ooni Layout Ibadan Express Way., 22005 Ile- Ife, Nigeria, e-mail: oadeolu1gmail.com