The effect of supplements Bujani Weaner cattle with dried poultry manure based concentrate

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted at the Livestock Teaching and Research Farm, University of Agriculture; Makurdi to evaluate the effect of dried poultry manure (DPM) based concentrate diets on the performance of Bunaji weaner cattle grazing natural pasture. In experiment 1, ten Bunaji weaner cattle aged between ten and eleven months and weighing approximately 117kg on the average, grazing natural pasture were fed DPM based concentrate diets for 90 days in a complete randomized design. The concentrate diets contained 0, 17.8, 33.7 and 47.96 percent levels of DPM and were designated treatments A, B, C, and D respectively. Animals on treatment E grazed natural pasture only. There was a decreasing trend in body weight gain as the level of DPM in the diets increased. However, no significant difference (P>0.05) were observed in feed intake, body weight gain and feed efficiency among the animals. The daily-weight gain of-the animals that were supplemented with DPM based concentrate diets however was significantly (p<0.05) higher than those on natural pasture alone. The average daily weight gains for treatments A, B, C, D, and E were 0.65kg, 0.60kg, 0.48kg, 0.44kgand 0.10kg respectively.

In experiment 2, four male Bunaji weaner cattle with an average ag^ of 13.5 months and weight of 129.5kg cere used ina4x4 latin square digestion trial to evaluate the utilization of the experimental diets. DM, CP, CF, EE and NFE digestibilities were not significantly different (P>0.05) among the treatments. There was however, a decreasing trend in the digestibilities of DM, CP, CF, EE and NFE as the level of DPM in diets increased. DM digestibility were 71.85, 68.53, 65.84 and 60.75 per cent for diets A, B, C and D. CP digestibilities were 80.14, 6.60, 73.91 and 71.68 per cent for diets A, B, C, and D respectively. The CF digestibilities were 56.19,51.48, 9.02 and 45.04 percent; EE digestibilities were 87.81,86.35,85.50, and 85.95percent while the NFE digestibilities were 79.26, 78.46, 77.30 and 74.61 percent for diets A, B, C, and D respectively. The nutritional and practical significance of these results are discussed.

Keywords: Supplementation, weaner cattle, poultry manure.