Feed intake, digestibility and body weight change in Farta sheep fed hay supplemented with rice bran and/or noug seed (Guizotia abyssinica) meal.

The study was conducted to determine the effect of supplementation with rice bran (RB) and /or noug seed (Guizotia abyssinica) meal (NSM) on feed intake, digestibility, and body weight (BW) change in hay based feeding of Farta sheep. Twenty five yearling Farta rams with a mean initial BW of 19.23 +/- 0.28 kg were used in randomized complete block design arranged into five blocks of five animals. The five dietary treatments that consisted of hay alone (T(1)), hay + RB (T(2)), hay + mixture of RB and NSM at a ratio of 1:2 (T(3)), hay + mixture of RB and NSM at a ratio of 2:1 (T(4)) and hay + NSM (T(5)) were randomly assigned to each sheep within a block. The supplements were daily offered at 300 g dry matter (DM) head(-1) in two equal parts at 800 and 1600 h. Supplementation improved the total DM and acid detergent fiber (ADF) intake (P < 0.05), organic matter (OM) intake (P < 0.01), crude protein (CP) intake (P < 0.001). The apparent digestibility of DM in T(5) was higher (P < 0.05) than in T(1) and T(2) and that of T(4) was also higher (P < 0.05) than in T(1). The apparent digestibility of CP in T(5) and T(4) were higher (P < 0.001) than in T(1) and T(2) and that of T(3) and T(2) were also higher (P < 0.001) than for T(1). The BW gain of experimental sheep was improved (P < 0.01) by supplementation with NSC (T(5)) and/or its mixtures with RB (T(3) and T(4)). The results of the study showed that supplementation with either of both mixtures of NSM and RB at 43% of total DM intake promoted better feed intake, digestibility and BW gain in Farta sheep.