Effect of adding Berseem to sugar beet leaves silage on productive performance of sheep

Document Type : Research article

Authors

1 Animal Nutrition Department, Animal Production Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Giza, Egypt

2 Animal Production Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University, Assiut 71524, Egypt

10.21608/aasj.2025.384923.1194

Abstract

This research was conducted to investigate nutritive value, growth performance, economic efficiency, nitrogen balance, digestion coefficient and blood constituents of lambs fed on varying propitiations of silage composed of sugar beet leaves and berseem (SBL+B). with concentrates feed mixture (CFM) plus 1% of live body weight (LBW) wheat straw (WS). The experiment involved 18 growing Saidi lambs with 20.6 ± 0.29 kg as an average LBW. R1 lambs were fed 3% CFM+ 1% of LBW WS as control, R2 lambs were fed 3% CFM+ (SBL+B) silage  as 2:1 and R3 were fed 3% CFM+ (SBL+B) silage  as 1:1. Digestibility and nutritive values were higher with (SBL+B) silage rations, showing significantly higher (p < 0.001) values for nitrogen balance and nitrogen absorption compared with control group R1. By increasing (SBL+B) silage in feeds, growth performance showed substantial (p < 0.001) improvements in final weight, total gain, and daily weight gain compared to control. The addition of (SBL+B) silage to rations resulted in a substantial decrease in feed intake as measured by DM, TDN, and DCP (p < 0.001), whereas R2 and R3 should be the best feed conversions as measured by DM, TDN, and DCP gain compared to lambs fed the control diet. As a result, lambs fed SBL+B silage had the best conversion and the lowest feed cost compared to lambs fed the control diet. Glu, Tp, Al, Gl, T3, and T4 blood component results were considerably (p < 0.001) different from the rest of the constituents (cholesterol, triglycerides, AST, and ALT).

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