Nutritional potentials of sugarcane peels meal on nutrients intake and digestibility of Yankasa sheep

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the nutritional potentials of sugarcane peels on nutrients intake and digestibility of Yankasa Sheep. Twenty (20) male growing Yankasa lambs aged 12 – 18 months, with an average initial weight of 17.93kg fed four different diets containing sugarcane peels to replace cowpea husk at 0, 15, 30, and 45 %. The sheep were randomly allocated to the four different experimental diets in a complete randomized design (CRD) for a period of 90 days. Results of this experiment indicate that, nutrients intake of all the treatments are significantly the same (P>0.05). The result of the digestibility study indicated that there was no significant differences between all the treatment means in terms of dry matter, crude protein, crude fibre, acid detergent fibre, ether extract, ash and nitrogen free extract digestibility. Apparent digestibility of this study shows that, sugarcane peels can be fed in the diet of growing sheep up to 45% level.