HAEMATOLOGICAL RESPONSE OF GROWING YANKASA RAMS FED UREA TREATED AND ENSILED MILLET STOVER BASED DIETS WITH SUPPLEMENTS

Abstract

An experiment was conducted in 90 days to evaluate the effect of feeding urea ensiled millet stover based diet with supplements on haematological profiles of 30 growing Yankasa rams of mean initial body weights of between 16.35 - 18.21 kg allotted to six treatments of five animals per treatment each taken as a replicate in a Completely Randomized Design. Four kg urea was dissolved in 100 litres of water sprinkled on 100kg of crushed millet stover and ensiled for 21 days was used as basal diet. A concentrate diet consisting of 300g of cotton seed cake (diet 1), Faidherbia albida (FA) meal (diet 2), cotton seed cake and maize offal (diet 3), FA and maize offal (diet 4), CSC and wheat offal (diet 5), and FA and wheat offal (diet 6) were all fed to each ram a quantity of 150g twice daily. Blood samples were collected and analysed for haematological parameters. Significant differences (P<0.05) were observed on haemoglobin, PCV, MCH, MCV and WBC. The results of this study revealed that ensiled millet stover with supplements can be fed to growing Yankasa rams without detrimental effects on haematological profile. CSC:WO at ratio of 50:50 in the diet recorded the best in majority of the parameters measured and is therefore recommended for growing Yankasa rams