Impact of effective microorganisms on feed intake, digestibility, growth and mixed internal parasitic load of local sheep at Debre Zeit,Ethiopia.

This experiment was conducted to determine the effects of different levels of EM-bokashi® and MEM solution inclusion in supplemental diets of Afar sheep on feed intake, digestibility, N-retention, body-weight (BW) gain and mixed internal parasitic load at the Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center, Debre Zeit, Ethiopia. Twenty-five yearling male Afar sheep with a mean BW of 18.8kg ± 1.6kg were used in the study. The experimental design was a randomized complete block design. Five sheep were randomly assigned to each of the five dietary treatments that consisted of ad libitum tef straw + concentrate (300gm/head/day) + no EM-bokashi® supplementation (T1), and supplementation of EM-bokashi® at level of 1 % (T2), 3 % (T3) and 5 % (T4) on their daily dry matter (DM) requirement basis and 14 % (T5) MEM solution. Treatment feed having 1 % EM-bokashi® showed higher DM, OM, ash, NDF and ADF than the rest but lower in its ADL content. The CP content of a mixture having 5% EM-bokashi® was higher (196 gm/kg DM) than the rest. Daily DM and CP intake increased (P 0.001) with inclusion of 14% MEM solution in the supplement diets, but it declined (P 0.05) at 5% of EM-bokashi ® inclusion however, daily LW gain was lower (P 0.05) in animals supplemented with the same diet compared to the other levels of EM-bokashi® inclusion. The difference in apparent digestibility coefficient of DM and CP at any percentage of EM-bokashi® and MEM solution inclusion was non significant (P0.05). However, the nitrogen intake with corresponding nitrogen retention were significantly higher (P0.05) for treatment 5 with the lowest being for treatment 2. Although Sheep fed on all treatment diets showed general reduction trend in internal parasitic egg count, non significant difference (P0.05) were observed among all the treatment diets in mean parasitic eggs load reductions. Therefore, it is concluded that EM_ could be included preferably in its MEM solution form than bokashi at 14% or more in the ration of sheep.