Performance of Red Sokoto Bucks Grazing Natural Vegetation in North Eastern Nigeria

Abstract

A study was conducted to investigate the effects of supplementing rainy season grazing of Red Sokoto bucks (RSB) with two protein sources (cotton seed cake -CSC and groundnuts cake -GNC) and two energy sources (maize bran-MB and wheat offal-WO). 24 RSB were used in a completely randomized design, with four treatments replicated six times. The results showed that daily concentrate intake (DCI) and total concentrate intake (TCI) were significantly (P<0.001) affected by the dietary treatments. Daily weight gain - DWG (P<0.01) and total weight gain-TWG (P<0.05) were significantly different among treatments. However, initial live weight (ILW), final live weight (FLW), feed conversion ratio (FCR) and efficiency of feed conversion (EFC) were not affected across the treatments. Pearson correlation among growth performance parameters showed that DCI was positively related (P<0.01) to TCI, DWG, TWG and EFC (P<0.05). TCI was also positively related (P<0.01) to DWG, TWG. Significant positive correlation (P<0.01) was also observed with DWG and TWG, FCR and EFC. In similar vein, TWG was also related to FCR and EFC. FCR was negatively (P<0.05; P<0.01) related to DCI and TCI and EFC.  It was concluded that feeding of GNC/MB significantly improved performance of RSB.