Dry Matter Intake and Digestibility of Nutrients by Yankassa Sheep Fed Diet in Which Biscuit Waste and Leucaena Leucocephala Leaf Replaced Maize and Wheat Offal Mixture.

A 21-day trial was conducted to find out the digestibility and utilization of biscuit waste meal/Leucaena leucocephala leaf hay (B WM/Llh) mixture in the diet of growing sheep. The test mixture was used to formulate diets in which it replaced maize/wheat offal mixture at 0 (control), 25, 50, 75 and 100% inclusion levels and were designated as B0, B25, B50, B75 and B100 respectively. Twenty entire Yankassa rams with average initial live weight of 12.16±0.34kg were used in the completely randomized design experiment with 4 animals per treatment. Statistical analysis result showed that the Dry Matter intake (g/d) values of 673.73, 664.63 and 653.17 obtained on diets B25, B50 and B75 were each higher (p<0.005) than (647.23) offered to the control. Percentage Dry Matter digestibil-ity decreased (p<0.05) from 87.54, 83.60, 77.90, 77.30 and 75.50 respectively in sheep receiving the test mixture diets. The digestibilities of crude protein, crude fibre and its fractions, nitrogen free extraction and energy which followed the same pattern as dry matter digestibility decreased (P<0.05) as the level of BWM/Llh mixture increased. However nitrogen absorbed and retained by ani-mals on the mixture based diets B25, B50 and the control (B0) were similar (P> 0.05). In conclusion, replacing maize, wheat offal mixture with biscuit waste meal, Leucaena leucocephala leaf hay mixture may be used until less than 75% in the diet of growing sheep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]