Supplementation of Graded Levels of Wheat Bran to Intact and Castrated Afar Sheep Fed Urea Treated Tef Straw: Effects on Feed Intake, Digestibility, Body Weight and Carcass Characteristics

Abstract

A feeding and digestibility trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of wheat bran (WB) supplementation on feed utilization and carcass characteristics in urea treated tef (Eragrostis tef) straw (UTTS) based feeding of Afar sheep. Sixteen intact and sixteen castrated Afar sheep with initial body weight (BW) of 15.75 ± 1.57 kg (mean ± SD) were used in a randomized complete block design with 2 sex (intact, T1-T4 and castrated, T5-T8) x 4 levels (0, control; 150 g, low; 250 g, medium; 350 g, high) of WB supplementation on a dry matter (DM) basis. Supplementation promoted higher total DM, crude protein (CP) (P intake, final BW, daily BW gain, feed conversion efficiency (FCE), rib-eye  muscle area (P Keywords: Afar Sheep; Carcass; Digestibility; Feed Intake; Urea Treated Tef Straw; wheat bran