Growth performance and nutrient digestibility of West African Dwarf Sheep fed high roughage diet containing <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i>

Abstract

A twelve-week study was conducted to determine the effects of dietary inclusion of yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) on growth performance and nutrient digestibility of West African dwarf (WAD) sheep. A total of 12 lambs (6 rams and 6 ewes) were randomly allotted to three treatment diets as follows: treatment I was a high roughage diet with no inclusion of S. cerevisiae; treatment II was a high roughage diet with 0.75 g of S. cerevisiae per kg of diet; treatment III was a high roughage diet with 1.5 g of S. cerevisiae per kg of diet. The chemical composition of the high roughage diet is as follows: dry matter (89.20%), organic matter (85.87%), crude protein (13.21%), crude fibre (16.40%), ether extract (3.30%), ash (4.33%), nitrogen free extract (51.96%), neutral detergent fibre (45.25%) and acid detergent fibre (26.62%). Each group was made up of four replicates with one sheep serving as a replicate. There were significant (p < 0.05) differences among treatments in average daily feed intake (ADFI), and average daily weight gain (ADWG) while final body weight (FBW) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were not significantly (p > 0.05) affected. There were significant (p < 0.05) differences among treatments in dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP), crude fibre (CF), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and acid detergent fibre (ADF) digestibility coefficients values. Based on these results addition of 1.5 g of S. cerevisiae per kg of diet is recommended.

Keywords: yeast, ruminant, protein, faeces, fibre