EVALUATION OF THE NUTRITIONAL PERFORMANCE OF BALAMI AND UDA RAMS ON FATTENING PROGRAMME IN THE HUMID TROPICS *

Abstract

The study investigated the influence of breed on the nutritional performance of Balami and Uda breeds of sheep in a Ram Fattening Programme at the Teaching and Research Farm of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, between August and October, 2012. Two hundred and sixty-one rams weighing 30.06 ± 0.31 kg were used in this study. The animals were sorted according to their breed/coat colour namely Balami, Uda Brown and Uda Black and were fed rice-bran based diet at 4% of their body weight. Parameters measured include average daily weight gain, total weight gain and feed efficiency. All data collected were analyzed using the general linear model procedure of SAS Results showed that final live weight, total weight gain and feed conversion ratio (FCR) differ (P<0.05) among the breeds. Uda breeds of ram recorded superior (P<0.05) daily weight gain and FCR than Balami breeds. Uda black showed improved performance than Uda Brown in terms of FCR, although the difference in their daily weight gain and total weight gain was not significant (P>0.05). It can therefore be concluded that Uda breed of sheep holds better prospect in ram fattening enterprise than Balami breed in the South west humid region.