THE EFFECT FEEDING FORAGE LEGUMES AS NITROGEN SUPPLEMENT ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF SHEEP

THE EFFECT FEEDING FORAGE LEGUMES AS NITROGEN SUPPLEMENT ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF SHEEP

J. J. BALOYI

N. T. NGONGONI

H. HAMUDIKUWANDA

The effect of feeding forage legumes,
Cowpea, Silverleaf desmodium and Oxley fine stem
stylo, as protein supplements to natural pasture (veld)
hay on intake, growth rate and nitrogen metabolism in
growing lambs was evaluated. Thirty growing lambs
were stratified according to body weight and randomly
assigned, within a stratum, to five diets in a completely
randomised design. The diets were veld hay alone (V),
veld hay supplemented with either 10 g/kg of urea
(VU), veld hay supplemented with 250 g/kg Cowpea
(VC), 250 g/kg Silverleaf desmodium (VS) or 250 g/kg
Oxley fine stem stylo (VF) forage legume hays. The V
and the VU groups were used as control diets. Animals
supplemented with either urea or the forage legume
had higher (P<0.01) total dry matter intake compared
with the animals on V. The animals supplemented with
the forage legumes had higher (P<0.01) nitrogen
intake and faecal nitrogen output than the non-
supplemented group. All animals, across the treat-ments, lost body weight; lambs on V had higher (P<
0.01) body weight losses than those in the other
treatments. The forage legume supplemented groups
lost less (P<0.01) body weight than those on the V
and VU diets. Although supplementation with forage
legumes enhanced feed intake and reduced weight
losses it did not maintain body weights

Trop Anim Health Prod

2007