Digestibility, nitrogen balance and blood profiles of West African Dwarf (WAD) goats fed with varying mixtures of grass-legume pellets

Abstract

Unavailability of forage in required quality and quantity for all year round production of ruminant cannot be over-emphasized. Hence, need for improvement on available feed resource becomes an obligation. The study was conducted to evaluate digestibility, nitrogen balance and blood profiles of West African dwarf (WAD) goats fed with varying mixtures of grass-legume pellets. Fifteen (15) WAD goats (aged 6-7 months) were fed with varying mixtures of grass-legume pellets comprising (60% Megathyrsus maximus [6Mm]; 30% Megathyrsus maximus + 30% Lablab purpureus [3Mm3Lp]; 40% Megathyrsus maximus + 20% Lablab purpureus [4Mm2Lp]; 40% Megathyrsus maximus + 20% Stylosanthes hamata [4Mm2Sh] and 30% Megathyrsus maximus + 30% Stylosanthes hamata [3Mm3Sh]) with each containing 40% fixed ingredients (21% brewer’s dried grain, 16% dried cassava peel, 2% local potash, 1% salt). The experimental design used is a Completely Randomized Design. Data obtained are crude protein (CP), crude fibre (CF), CP digestibility (CPd), CF digestibility (CFd), pack cell volume (PCV), white blood cell (WBC) and serum Alanine Aminotransferase (ALT), and subjected to one way ANOVA at 5% level of probability using SPSS. Pellets 4Mm2Lp and 3Mm3Sh had similar values for CP (17.10 and 17.32%), CPd (71.69 and 72.06%), CFd (65.85 and 66.67%), N retention (72.34 and 73.94%) while 3Mm3Sh had better improvement on PCV, WBC and ALT. Crude fibre was similar (p>0.05) for all the pellets except for 6Mm. It could be concluded that feeding 3Mm3Sh pellet to WAD goats improved their nutrient utilization, thus enhancing their performance all year round.