NUTRIENT DIGESTIBLITY AND INTAKE OF WEST AFRICAN DWARF GOATS FED DIET CONTAINING DIFFERENT LEVELS OF SWEET ORANGE PEELS AND GAMBA GRASS

Résumé

Nine male West African Dwarf bucks (WAD)having an average weight of 6.77kg and about 5-7 months of age were used to evacuate the apparent nutrient digestibility of diets containing graded levels of sweet orange peel meal (SOPM) in a completely randomized design. Three treatment diets were formulated and compounded, that is treatment 1,2 and 3 to contain 0%, 75% and 85% SOPM. Animals were daily fed with 150g of the concentrate supplements whereas the grass was fed ad libitum. Results of apparent nutrient digestibility showed that dry matter (DM), crude protein(CP), crude fibre(CF), nitrogen free extracts (NFE) and ether extracts (EE) were not significantly different (p>0.05) among the treatments, values of DM digestibility ranged between 62.17-69.73%. Dry matter intake (DMI) was between 176.62- 195.61g/day, apart from DMI there seemed to be slight numerical decrease in the values of the other parameters from T1-T3 as the level of replacement of maize offal increased. Sweet orange peel meal can replace maize offal up to 85% level without negative effect on digestibility of nutrient or intake.