Effects of feed resources in arid lands on growth performance of local goat kids in southern Tunisia
2013
N., Ayeb | M., Seddik | M., Hammadi | A., Barmat | M., Atigui | H., Harrabi | T., Khorchani
In southern Tunisia, breeders have developed several strategies to ensure the nutritional requirements of their herds. They profit of the favourable season to establish reserves by harvesting and drying range species and weeds as natural hay called “khortane”. Other dried resources are commonly used such as Stipa tenacissima (gueddim) and olive leaves. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of local feed resources on intake and growth performances in goat kids. Twenty seven goat kids of local breed (average body weight and age: 15.85 kg and 4.5 months, respectively) were equitably divided in three homogenous groups and used for 90 days. Groups received respectively oat hay (Diet 1), dried olive leaves+ dried gueddim (D2) and khortane (D3). There were supplemented with 350 g of concentrate and received water twice a day. During the experimental period, animals were weighed every week until slaughter day. Live body weight (LBW) was higher (p less than 0.001) in D 2 (17.65 plus minus 1.61) compared to D1 and D3 (16.69 plus minus1.67 and 17.1 plus minus 1.56 kg respectively). The average dry matter intake was 488.82 plus minus 21.92; 619.23 plus minus 16.70 and 591.51 plus minus 23.08 respectively for D1, D2 and D3. Daily body gain (DBG) in D2 and D3 groups was comparable (35.2 and 34.4 g, respectively), but lower (P less than 0.0001) in D1 group (24.8 g). In conclusion, khortane, gueddim and dried olive leaves could efficiently substitute oat hay during fattening period of local goat kids.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by Instituto Agronómico Mediterráneo de Zaragoza