GROWTH AND FATTENING PERFORMANCE OF YANKASA RAMS FED COMPLETE DIET CONTAINING UREA AND LIME TREATED GROUNDNUT SHELL (Arachis hypogaea) SHELL

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Bourn et al. (2002) estimated Nigerian ruminants livestock population to be about13.9 million cattle, 22.1 million of sheep and 34.5million goats. FAO (2016) reported about

15.2 million cattle, 28 million goats, 23 million sheep in Nigeria. In spite of these impressive statistics on sheep and goat, their potentials are not fully realized due to low productivity, high mortality, low growth rate, low productive performance among others (Mahadi, 2002).

Sheep are able to use marginal lands and crop residues as feed and are kept in Nigeria mainly for meat (Bello, 2008). They are ranked second after cattle in terms of meat production (FDLPCS, 1992). FAO (2016) reported sheep to contribute 16% of the total domestically produced meat in Nigeria. Of the four breeds of sheep in Nigeria, Yankasa sheep are perhaps the most widely and most numerous breed in the Northern part of the country, they are found in the Sahel, Sudan and Guinea Savannah zones of the Country (Gefu, 2002).

Increasing demand for rams and bucks as slaughter animals for meat can be satisfied through fattening. The primary objective of fattening is to increase the live weight of the animal and the quality of meat in relatively shorter period (Osuhor, 2002 ). Animal for fattening is confined while feeds and water are ad-libitum throughout the fattening period, though it can be achieved in a semi-intensive system, where they are offered more feed supplements than the rest of the flock before or after released for grazing.

Feed is one of the important factors that limit livestock production in the tropics especially during the dry season when high quality forages are scarce (Adebowale and Taiwo, 1996). The cost of livestock feeds and feed ingredients in recent years has increased tremendously. Hence, the cost of feeding has become a major problem of livestock production in the developing countries. Aduku (1993) reported cost of feed to account for about 70% of the total cost of animal production. This therefore necessitates the need and interest in exploring neglected or underutilized feedstuff materials, such as groundnut shells which are left after the groundnut was processed and are very much available in the north western zone of the country. Several researches (Abdul Hamid, 2013; Adamu, 2015) were conducted in this area, however, not much has been done in evaluating nutritive potentials of groundnut shell in the diet of sheep in attempt to reduce the cost of sheep production.

Groundnut shell is the residue of crop specie called Arachis hypogaea, a specie in the legume or „bean‟ family (Fabaceae). The crop is known with many other names such as groundnut, peanut, monkey nut, earthnut, goober nut and pygmy nut. Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is among the important crops grown in Sub-Saharan Africa (Nigam et al., 1991). Grown either as sole crop or mixed with other crops. It provides both high quality nuts for human consumption as well as high quality fodder for livestock. An important oil seed crop in Nigeria, grown widely in the Tropics and Sub-tropics (Ehlers and Hall, 1997). Desire et al. (2010) reported groundnut to have ability to grow even in sandy soils and is legume of high nutritive value as well as being a source of edible oil. The fruit is a pod with one to five seeds that develops underground within a needle-like structure called a peg. The seeds are rich in oil, 38-50 protein, calcium, potassium, phosphorous, magnesium and vitamins (Adamu, 2015)

Jumia (2012) reported groundnut shell to have dry matter content to about 90.3% of which 4.8-7.2 is crude protein, 1.0-1.1% is crude fat and 65.7-79.3% is cellulose and lignin. Carbohydrate is 10.6-21.2%, crude ash is 1.9-4.6%, calcium is 0.24%, and phosphorus is 0.08-0.09%. The dry matter per kilogram contains digestible energy of 4.605-5.108 KJ for cow, 4.438-4.898 KJ for sheep, including digestible protein as 15-17grams/Kg. The shell also contains vitamins and part of the amino acids after microbial process.

Groundnut shells were reported to contain 65.7% cellulose, 21.2% carbohydrates, 7.3% protein, 4.5% minerals and 1.2% lipids, since the processed shells from shelling machines contain bits and skins of nuts, the actual protein and lipid contents of this waste material are probably much higher (Abdur-Razak et al., 2014).