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Digestibility and nutrient intake of mango (Mangifera indica) kernel meal based diets by growing West African dwarf sheep feed rice straw.

Abel IO, Winifred PM, John AA

Mango kernel, a residue after the flesh/juice has been extracted, and usually considered a waste, could be utilized as animal feed. Trials were therefore conducted to evaluate its potential as a feed resource. Performance of sixteen yearling West African Dwarf rams were evaluated using rice straw as basal diet and four levels of mango kernel meal (MKM, 0, 50, 75 and 100%) as concentrate supplements. The four diets (T0, T50, T75 and T100) were fed in a completely randomized design with four replicates to the ram at 2% of body weight, while the rice straw was fed ad-libitum daily. There were no significant (P>0.05) differences in the performance of the animals fed the four diets. On dry matter intake, digestibility was highest in T3 (72.28%) which was significantly different from diets T1, T2 and T4 (65.10, 65.57 and 65.36%). Nutrient digestibility in T3 for CF, EE and NFE was best and differed significantly (P<0.05) from those in T1, T2 and T4. There were however, significant differences (P<0.05) in digestible nutrient intake. Crude fiber intake was highest in T3 (128.02 g/kg LW0.75) which were significantly different (P<0.05) from diets T1 and T2 (107.53 and 113.25 g/kgLW0.75, respectively). Ether extract intake followed the same trend as CF.