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Hindi Research Article
Evaluating Production Performance of Tigray Highland Sheep Supplemented with Air Dried Foliages of African Wild Olive and Red Thorn: A Case Study of Carcass Production
Urge M1, Animut G2 and Abraham H1,3*1Department of Animal and Range Sciences, Bule Hora University, Ethiopia
2Ethiopian Institute of Research Organization, Ethiopia
3Haramaya University School of Animal and Range Sciences, Ethiopia
- *Corresponding Author:
- Abraham H
Haramaya University School of
Animal and Range Sciences
P.O. Box 138, Dire Dawa Ethiopia
Tel: 251255530051/53
E-mail: hagsabr@gmail.com
Received Date: January 11, 2016; Accepted Date: February 02, 2016; Published Date: February 15, 2016
Citation: Urge M, Animut G, Abraham H (2016) Evaluating Production Performance of Tigray Highland Sheep Supplemented with Air Dried Foliages of African Wild Olive and Red Thorn: A Case Study of Carcass Production. J Fisheries Livest Prod 4:166. doi:10.4172/2332-2608.1000166
Copyright: © 2016 Urge M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
An experiment was conducted at Wukro St. Mary Agricultural, Technical, Vocational Education and Training College to determine effect of feeding foliages from African wild olive and Red thorn on growth performance and carcass production of Tigray Highland sheep and to assess their economic benefits. Chemical composition and supplementation effect of foliages of these indigenous tree species on growth performance of Tigray Highland sheep is available on line. Including air dried foliages of the multipurpose trees as protein supplement to grass hay improved carcass production. Supplemented sheep had significantly (P<0.05) higher slaughter weight, empty body weight, hot carcass weight and dressing percentage on slaughter weight basis than the control treatment. It was economically feasible to poor smallholder sheep owners in the area, but supplementing T4 (mixed air dried foliages) was found as cost-effective with its high net income. The results obtained indicated that feeding foliages from the multipurpose trees alone or mixing at different proportions had potential as protein supplement with less expense.
