Effects of Feeding Different Levels of Sesame Oil Cake (Sesamum indicum L.) On Performance and Carcass Characteristics of Sudan Desert Sheep

Abstract

Twenty seven entire lambs of Sudan desert sheep were used to evaluate the effect of using different level of sesame cake meal (SCM) in a fattening experiment which extended for fifty days. Experimental animals were fed iso-caloric and iso-nitrogenous diets containing two sources of protein: groundnut cake (treatment A) and sesame cake at 15% level (treatment B) and at 20% level (treatment C). Significant (≤ 0.05) differences were observed only in Daily weight gain, Feed conversion ratio and heart weight. In these traits treatment A and C were superior to treatment B, the three treatments record 0.166±0. 0.179±0.03 and 0.143±0.01b g/d, 6.87±2.4, 7.65±1.1 and 9.02±1.7 DMI/kg gain and 0.25±0.00, 0.26 ±0.02, 0.30±0.00 kg for the traits respectively. It was concluded that the addition of sesame cake up to 20% lead to satisfactory feedlot performance and carcass yield.