Prediction of Dry Matter Intake and Live Weight Gain in Lambs by Some Characteristics of Roughages

Authors: Adnan SEHU, Sakine YALÇIN, Ahmet G. ÖNOL, Durali KOÇAK

Abstract: This study was carried out to evaluate the regression equations for predicting the dry matter intake and digestible dry matter intake of roughages and live weight gain from roughages in lambs. For this purpose, rumen degradability characteristics of some roughages according to the equation of p=a+b(1-e -ct ), rumen dry matter degradability in different periods of time, ADF-NDF contents and digestibility of dry matter were used as independent characteristics. Roughages consisted of straws of wheat, rice, barley, oat, chickpea, vetch and lentil and oat hay. The roughage intake and growth rate were predicted in separate 2 periods by using totally 24 merino male lambs. Four groups each consisting 6 lambs were designed for each roughages. Three merino male sheep were used for in vivo digestibility trial and three for rumen degradability trial. The average dry matter intake of roughages varied from 542.7 to 992.7 g/day, digestible dry matter intake from 235.9 to 557.7 g/day live weight gain from 16.7 to 197.0 g/day. Number of equations used to predict the dry matter and digestible dry matter intake were more than the equations for live weight gain. In addition the correlation coefficients for live weight gain were found lower than that of others. The highest correlation coefficients of between dry matter intake, digestible dry matter intake of roughages and live weight gain with the contents of a',b',c,L determined from the equation of p=a+b(1-e -ct ) were found to by 0.89, 0.92 and 0.82 respectively.

Keywords: Lamb, ruminal degradation, digestibility, dry matter intake, live weight gain.

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