EFFECT OF SUPPLEMENTATION WITH <i>Moringa oleifera</i> ON THE BEHAVIOUR OF SHEEP FED WITH A BASAL DIET OF GUINEA GRASS (<i>Panicum maximum</i> Jacq.)

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at Santa Rosa farm, National
University of Agriculture in Managua, Nicaragua, located
geographically at 12°08'15'' north and 86°09'36'' east, in order
to evaluate the effect of supplementation with different levels
of Moringa oleifera forage on productive behavior of sheep
feeding with a basal diet of Panicum maximum Jacq. Eighteen
tropical cross breed lambs with an average initial body weight
of 20 ± 2 kg were used in a Completely Randomized Design
and with three treatments: Panicum maximum ad-libitum,
P. maximum ad-libitum + 0.35 kg DM M. oleifera and P.
maximum ad-libitum + 0.50 kg DM M. oleifera. Before the start
up of the trial, all animals were injected with Vitamin AD3E
and were treated against external and internal parasites. Data
were analyzed through analysis of variance using the Minitab
Statistical Software Version 12.0 (Minitab, 1998). Tukey's
pairwise comparison procedure was used when the difference
between treatments means was significant. Supplementation
with Moringa increased (P< 0.05) Total DM intake from 0.57 to
0.73 and 0.80 kg DM day^-1, average daily weight gain from 30.9
to 90.9 and 118.0 g day^-1 and feed conversion ratio from 18.5
to 8.0 and 6.8 for P. maximum only and supplementation with
0.35 kg and 0.50 kg DM of Moringa, respectively. The results
showed that the inclusion of Moringa as a protein supplement
for sheep fed with low quality diets improved Total DM intake,
average daily weight gain and feed conversion ratio.

Keywords: Marango; average daily weight gain; intake; feed
efficiency.

DOI: 10.5377/calera.v9i13.19