Monitoring of Feed Intake and Growth Performance of Small Ruminants in the Atebubu-Amantin-District

2014

English

The study aimed at monitoring the liveweight performance of sheep and goats in two communities (Atebubu and Amantin) in the Atebubu-Amantin- District of Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana. Six farmers (three males and three females) were selected from each of the two Communities with each farmer providing six animals (three sheep and three goats). A split plot design with six repli-cations was used. The main plot was the locations of study (Atebubu and Amantin) with the sub-plot being the feeding type (Basal, cowpea chaff and groundnut chaff). The basal feed resources comprised maize stover and cassava. The percentage nutrient compositions for the basal diet were DM (84.22 & 83.55); OM (89.43 & 88.96); CP (6.41 & 5.31) and ash (9.57 & 11.04) for Atebubu and Amantin respectively. Total feed intake was influenced by the type of feed consumed by the sheep and goats in both locations (P < 0.0001). The feed intake of sheep and goats ranged from 16.04 – 32.52 and 27.68 – 39.89 Kg/LW respectively. Similarly, feed type significantly affected the average daily gain (ADG) of both sheep and goats (P < 0.0001), however locational effect was not significant for the ADG of sheep (P = 0.1744) and goat (P = 0.9001). The feed resources for opti-mum small ruminants’ productivity are available in the study area but farmers lacked the know-how in using the right materials for feeding their animals to meet their maintenance and produc-tion requirement.

Ansah, K. O.; Antwi, C.; Ennin, S. A.; Amoah, S.; Osei-Adu, J.; Osafo, E. L. K.; Adu-Dapaah, H.