EFFECT OF SORREL SEED (HIBISCUS SABDARIFFA) SUPPLEMENTATION ON THE PERFORMANCE OF YANKASA RAMS FED BRACHIARIA DECUMBENS AS BASAL DIET

*John Alabi Bozinviya¹, M.S. Yahaya¹ and Julius Nyameh²

¹Department of Animal science, Federal University of Technology, Yola, Nigeria.

²Department of Animal Production, College of Agriculture, Jalingo, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

An eight-week feeding trial was conducted to determine the performance of Yankasa rams fed raw and differently processed Sorrel Seed Meal (SSM) as protein supplement. Sixteen (16) growing Yankasa Rams aged between 6-7 months were randomly allocated to 4 dietary treatments replicated 4 times in a complete randomized block design. The treatment groups were control diet, raw SSM, soaked SSM and toasted SSM as T₁ – T₄ respectively. The rams were offered basal diet (Bracharia decumbens) and water ad-libitum. Sorrel seed meal was given at 300g daily (twice daily i.e 150g/meal). The parameters used to evaluate the performance were feed intake, body weight gain and feed conversion ratio. The daily feed intakes (F1) were 295.87, 234.10, 232.15 and 214.45g for T­₁, T₂, T₃ and T₄ respectively. The corresponding daily weight gains (ADWG) were 109.32, 127.22, 124.35 and 160.67g for T­₁, T₂, T₃ and T₄ respectively. The daily F.I, ADWG and FCR differ significantly (P<0.05) among the treatment groups. The control performed better in terms of feed intake while sorrel seeds in its toasted forms did significantly better in mean weight gain and FCR. Therefore, toasted and raw sorrel seed meals could be use as protein supplement for Yankasa rams without    adverse effect on

their productive and blood parameters.

Keyword: Sorrel Seed, Yankasa Ram, Protein Supplementation, Tannin, Experimental Diet