UTILIZATION OF HIGH LEUCAENA DIET BY WEST AFRICAN DWARF SHEEP AND GOATS

Abstract

The shady was designed to determine the performance of West African Dwarf WADI sheep and goat on high Leucaena diet and to study the effect of inoculation em fie utilization of leucaena. Eighteen (181 .WAD goats were randomly divided hip &eel gaunter and twelve (12) WAD sheep were divided into two groups based on where they were given rumen inoculum (inoculated) or not (non inoculated) and mu the percentage of leucaena in the diets (50% and 74%). This was studied for Gwe msmeXas. EnrnuIatrQn rand level of leucaena in the diet did not have significant affect and dry matter intake and digestibility of the animals. The DM digestibility’s of the kcxdated goats was 66.5S0/0 while that of the non-inoculated was 67-65 %.The DM digestibility’s of the inoculated and nsn-inoculated sheep were 65.34 % and 67.14% respectively. There was significant difference in the growth rate of inoculated and non-bocullated goats (P< 0.01). The non-inoculated goats had higher growth rate (5636 $/day) than the inoculated ones (23.17 glday) thoroughaut the duration of the experiment. The growth rate of the non-inoculated sheep was 132.50 glday while that of the inoculated ones was 69.61 glday. The level of leucaena in the diet did not have significant effect on the growth rate of the animals (P>0.05).The results of this study suggested that the inoculation was not effective and that leucaena should not constitute up to 50% of the diet of West African dwarf sheep and goats.