M K Adegun
The prohibitive cost of conventional feedstuff such as maize has been one of the reasons to search for alternative feed resources in livestock diets. This study was undertaken to compare the growth and economic performance of West African Dwarf (WAD) rams fed graded levels of Yam Peels Meal (YPM) and maize-based concentrate diets. Thirty-two yearlings WAD rams weighing 13.9 ± 2.0 kg were assigned to a completely randomized design of 4 treatments with 4 replicates. The animals were fed a basal diet of Panicum maximum at 3% of their body weight, supplemented with 0% YPM based concentrate in treatment 1, treatment 2 (33.3% YPM), treatment 3 (66.7% YPM) and treatment 4 (100% YPM) as replacements for maize in the concentrate diets. The result showed that there was a significant difference (p<0.05) between 100% maize (T1) and 100% YPM (T4) in terms of total weight gain and metabolic weight gain with T1 having higher values. However, animals fed 66.66% (T3) YPM had significantly higher metabolic weight gain compared to all. On feed conversion ratio (FCR), T1 had significantly better value compared to T4 (p<0.05), although T3 had the best FCR at 8.25 ± 0.3. Linear body measurements also followed growth patterns in some parameters with rams on T3 having the highest value in height at wither gain, paunch girth gain and scrotal circumference gain at 7.30 ± 0.3, 4.70 ± 0.2, and 3.60 ± 0.3 cm respectively. The cost of feed/ kilogram weight gain decreased linearly from N158.72 in animals fed T1 to N59.13 in animals fed T4. The highest value of average net return was obtained from the animals in T3 (N7, 440/ram). Consequently, the yam peels meal could replace maize up to 100% in the diet of sheep with a reduction in the cost of production. But the optimum replacement for growth performance and average net return was at 66.7%.
