Abstract:
The study was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary inclusion of PEG6000 and wood ash in leaves
of the condensed tannin rich trees (Albizia gummifera; Rhus glutinosa, Syzygium .guineense), feeding
on nutrient intake; digestibility; weight gain; feed conversion efficiency and economic efficiency. A
study was conducted at Jimma University College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine of Small
Ruminant Research facility The twenty four intact male lambs with initial body weight of 23.42 ±0.080
SE kg and an average of 12 months old .were divided in to three blocks of eight animals per treatment
based on their initial body weight in randomized complete block design with 3 treatments, 7 days
adaptation;80 days of feeding trial and 7 days of digestive trial for data collection The dietary
treatments consisted of T1(,40% hay , 150gm concentrate, + 30% A. gummifera , + 10%, R. glutinosa,
+ 20% S.guinessa ,) ,T2 (T1+ PEG 6000) and T3 (T1+wood ash). Animals were individually fed at 50
g DM/kg BW and had free access to clean drinking water and mineralized salt licks. Nutrient intake,
apparent nutrient digestibility, nutrient conversion ratios; live body weight gains and economic
efficiency of lambs were determined. Condensed tannin concentrations in TRTS, hay and CCM
(commercial concentrate mix) were 140, bdl and bdl g/kg DM, respectively. The highest improvement
in all essential nutrients intake was recorded in T3 than T2. Similarly, apparent nutrients digestibility
and body weight change at T2 and T3 was significantly higher (P<0.001) than control (T1) group. The
total return (TR) ETB/sheep was (478ETB), (554ETB), (570 ETB) for T1, T2 and T3 respectively. From
this study, sheep could efficiently use mixes of tannin rich feeds either as maintenance or production
ration with the presence of tannin binding agents such as PEG and wood ash.
This result did not cover all agro ecological areas; animal species and all tannin rich plats in Ethiopia.
As a recommendation similar research works would need to be implemented in Ethiopia by using all
other remaining tannin rich trees and plants in different agro ecological zones on different animal
species.
