Effect of Urea or Urea- Molasses Treated Maize Stover on Body Weight Change and Carcass Parameter on Hararghe Highland Sheep, Eastern Ethiopia

This experiment was conducted to evaluate feed intake, daily body weight gain (ADG) and carcass characteristics of feeding sheep with a basal diet of untreated and treated maize stover (MS) at Haramaya University. The experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design using 20 intact male Hararghe Highland sheep having a mean initial body weight of 15.4 ± 0.57 kg (mean ± SD). The animals were grouped into five blocks based on initial body weight and randomly assigned to four treatments; namely, untreated maize stover ad libitum (T1); urea treated maize stover (UTMS) ad libitum (T2); urea-molasses treated maize stover (UMTMS) ad libitum (T3 and T4). T1, T2 and T3 were supplemented with 300g concentrate mix of wheat bran (WB) and noug seed cake (NSC) at the ratio of 2:1. Hundred kg of maize stover (MS) was treated with 4 kg of urea dissolved in 100 liters of water alone or with additional 10% molasses. Water and block salt were available to the animal at all time. The crude protein (CP) content of MS, UTMS, UMTMS, NSC and WB were 5.9, 8, 10, 30.1, and 17.2%, respectively. Higher (P<0.001) total DM intake was noted for sheep fed T2 (700.7 g/day) and T3 (770.9 g/day) diets than those fed T1 (538.28 g/day) and T4 (481.4 g/day). CP intake was in the same trend as dry matter intake. ADG was 45.1, 65, 69.1, and 20.7 g/day for T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively, which was significantly higher (P<0.001) for T2 and T3 than T1 and T4. Furthermore, T1, T2 and T3 animals had higher (P<0.001) feed conversion efficiency, dressing percentages (P<0.001) and hot carcass weight (P<0.001) than T4 animals. In general, animals in T2 and T3 had 1.5 and 3.2 times higher average daily gain than those in T1 and T4, respectively. Similarly, animals in T1, T2 and T3 produced about 2.3 kg more carcasses than those in T4. The result revealed that supplementing either urea treated or urea-molasses treated maize stover is a better option to improve both biological and economic performance of sheep. But, no advantage was gained from treating maize stover with a blend of urea and molasses solution if the basal diet is supplemented with concentrate diet