DEPARTMENT OF ANIMAL SCIENCE

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    DIGESTION AND UTILIZATION OF PROTEIN IN THE WEST AFRICAN DWARF SHEEP
    (1974-10) ADEGBOLA, T. A.
    West African dwarf sheep maintained on Cynodon nlemfuensis/Centrosema pubescens hay and concentrate supplements were used to study intake and digestibility of dry matter and nitrogen metabolism. Levels of ruminal metabolites of nitrogenous origin and blood urea were examined on the rations fed to the sheep. [15N] ammonium chloride and [15N] urea were used to study the production of ammonia and its utilization in the rumen, and the flow of blood urea into the digestive tract. Shredded paper impregnated with chromic oxide was used to partition digestibility in the stomach and intestines of the sheep. The results for the West African dwarf sheep were compared with those of other breeds of sheep in intake and digestibility of organic matter and nitrogen metabolism. The intake of dry matter by the West African dwarf sheep was similar to that of other breeds when expressed per metabolic size. Nitrogen retention values were high and this shows that absorbed N was being utilized efficiently. The metabolic faecal N values of 3.0 to 3.7g N/kg dry matter intake and the endogenous urinary N value of 0.0238 g/day/WKg 0.734 were obtained for this class of livestock. The biological values of the rations ranged from 85.7 to 100.0%. The digestible crude protein requirement for maintenance over the experimental period was 0.74g/day/Wkg, 0.734 by the N balance mehod, and 0,22g/day/Wkg 0.734 by the factorial method. The levels of nitrogenous metabolites in the rumen varied with levels of dietary crude protein. Ruminal ammonia was highly correlated (r = 0.99) with blood urea. The amino acids present in lowest concentration in bacterial and protozoal protein are methionine and histidine while there are high levels of lysine and leucine. Isotopic studies with [15N] ammonium chloride and urea shows that 4-7% of [15N] ammonium chloride administered into the rumen was recovered in the faeces, and 3.1% was recovered in milk. Also 30.5% of [15N] urea administered into the blood was recovered in the urine and the isotope was not recovered in the faeces. Ruminal ammonia contributed 26 – 33% of the bacterial N and 15 – 19% of protozoal N ten hours after feeding. Urea was synthesized in the body at the rate of 9.4 to 10.1g/day, and 4.7 to 7.3g/day were degraded in the digestive tract of the sheep. The chromic oxide - impregnated paper method showed that 72.5% of digestible dry matter and 72.6% of digestive organic matter of the rations were digested in the stomach. The corresponding values for small intestine were 10.1% and 11.4% for dry matter and organic matter respectively, while in the ceacum and colon, the values were 17.5% and 16.0% for dry matter and organic matter respectively. Substantial amount of N of endogenous origin were secreted in the proximal small intestine but were efficiently absorbed before the distal portion was reached. The results show that the West African dwarf sheep utilize the hay and supplement rations efficiently and are adapted for survival in areas where the intake of N might be inadequate.
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    STUDIES ON DRY MATTER, ENERGY AND PROTEIN UTILIZATION OF THREE BREEDS OF DAIRY COWS AT IBADAN
    (1976-07) ADEBOWALE, A.
    Comparative studies were conducted on exotic (German Brown and Friesian) and indigenous (White Fulani) lactating cows to assess (a) the systems of management best suited for the newly imported lactating, exotic cows for maximum production (b) the effects of seasons, stage of lactation, breeds and diets on feed dry matter (DM) intake, liveweight changes, milk yield and composition, respiration and body temperature of White Fulani (WF), German Brown (GB) and Friesian (F) lactating cows and (c) the effects of DM intake, dietary level, stags of lactation and breed on productivity, digestibility of feed, milk composition, energy and protein utilization, rumen and blood metabolites. Results on management studies indicated that the grazed cows produced more milk, solids-corrected milk (SCM), butter- fat, ash and less milk protein than the stall-fed (P<.05). Although higher respiratory counts, water intake and body temperatures were recorded for the grazed cows than the stall-fed ones, the results were not statistically significant (P> 0.05) Lactation studies showed that the exotic breeds consumed more forage DM than the indigenous, giving 5.92±0.21, 5.59±0.l6 and 4.49±0.16kg/day for the F, GB and WF cows respectively. The peak forage DM intake was attained between the 5th and 10th week of lactation. The mean milk yield and SCM were 27.55±6.15 and 29.83±5.26kg/week respectively for the WF cows, 40.16±6.15 and 36.91±3.26 respectively for the F and 41.16±8.19 and 40.16±5.84kg/week respectively for the GB. Peak milk production was attained between the 5th and 9th week of lactation. Generally, results showed that the milk of the WF cows possessed higher milk quality, producing higher percentage of butterfat and protein, than the exotic breeds. Although there were more forage DM intake during the dry season than the wet, higher milk yield was recorded during the latter season than the former. Liveweight losses occurred from the beginning of the experiment to about the 10th week of lactation. The results of the relationship between rumen metabolites and milk yield showed that when the ratio of acetate to propionate was lower, there was a higher yield of milk and protein but when the ratio was higher, there was an increased butterfat. The digestible crude protein'(DCP) values for maintenance were 0.39g/day/W(0.734 kg) (91.82g/day available protein (AP), O.47g/day/(0.734 kg) (113.28g/day AP) and 0.52g/day/(0.734 kg) (121.77g/day AP) for the WF, GB and F cows respectively. The N-balance studies indicated that 6.69gDCP/day/W(0.734 kg) (304.80gAP/day) were required by the WF cows to produce 3.35kg milk/day (0.51%N), 6.34DCP/day/W(0.734 kg) (353.93gAP/day) by the GB cows to produce 6.17kg milk/day (0.47%N) and 6.54gDCP/day/W(0.734 kg) (359.20g AP/day) by the F cows to produce 7.08kg milk/day (O.49%N). The mean net efficiency of protein utilization were 27.95, 43.43 and 53.73% for the WF, GB and F cows respectively. The metabolizable energy values for maintenance were 0.53, 0.59 and 0.61 MJ/day/W(0.734 kg) for the WF, GB and F cows respectively. These are 72.29, 72.75 and 73.43% of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of the United Kingdom (MAFF)(1975) recommendation respectively. The gross energetic efficiencies for milk production were 10.23, 12.79 and 14.33% for the WF, GB and F cows respectively while the net energetic efficiencies were 25.47, 31.31 and 37.50% respectively. Finally, the conclusions from the trials have shown that 8.3% (WF), 10.3% (F) and 11.2% (GB) of the energy intake were contributed by the protein fraction of the DM intake.
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    EFFECTS OF VARIATIONS IN DIETARY ENERGY LEVELS ON THE GROWTH AND CARCASS QUALITY OF THE NIGERIAN DWARF SHEEP
    (1976-04) ADEBAMBO, V. O.
    A total of 76 animal experiments, involving young Nigerian Dwarf Sheep, were conducted to investigate the growth response to effects of varying levels of dietary energy. The studies also embraced digestibility trials and carcass evaluation. Results obtained appear to indicate that between the ages of 3 - 6 months, a daily intake of 107.1 kcal metabolizable energy was required for maintenance while from 6 - 9 months of age the requirement increased to 129.2 kcal per day. A growth requirement of 215 kca1 ME/day/W0.73kg and 1387 kcal ME/dayW0.73kg was obtained for animals between 3 - 6 months and 6 - 9 months respectively. An analysis of the pooled results seems to indicate that 134.04 kca1 ME per day and 647kca1/ME/day/W0.73kg was the requirement for maintenance and increase of 1 kg. live-weight respectively. Studies on digestibility of feeds revealed that the effects of variations in the type of ration on digestibility was less marked than the effects due to age of the animals. Crude fibre digestibility coefficient for the basal diet was about 68.04% for the older animals while the corresponding values for the younger animals ranged between 54.4% and 56.0%. values for the mixed diet and concentrate ration ranged from 68.3% to 77.45% and 71.3% to 79.5% respectively with the older animals while the corresponding values for the younger animals were in the range of 58:01% to 60.59% and 63:8% to 65.02%. Results of animal performance indicated that younger animals are capable of faster growth than older ones but the effect of low plane of nutrition as indicated by growth rates is more adversely felt by the younger animals. Thus the mean daily weight gains of the older animals were 79.6g, 83.8g, 82.2g, 55.7g for treatments A, B, C and D respectively while the corresponding values for the younger animals were 97.7g, 71.8g, 45.7g and 21.7g respectively. The carcass evaluation showed that dressing percentages and percentage flesh increase with age. At six months and in all treatments, the range was between 34.3% to 43.8% while at 9 months it rose to 49.7% to 60.8%. Percentage of flesh in the carcass has been shown to range from 62.6% to 66.2% at birth with a possible increase of about 0.7% to 0.9% per kg live-weight gain. The results of this study have shown that the younger animals are capable of faster growth and respond faster to high plane of nutrition but the effect of low plane of nutrition as indicated by growth rates of all animals on the lower energy level diets, is more adversely felt by the younger animals. It is to be noted that the early weaned lambs cannot survive on pasture alone. The results also were discussed in terms of the economics of production.
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    SOW MILK YIELD AND COMPOSITION IN RELATION TO DAM AND LITTER PERFORMANCE
    (1976-08) ADEBAMBO, O. A.
    A total of 100 sows involving seven pure and crossbred genotypes of the Large White, Landrace, indigenous pigs of Nigeria and the Duroc x Large White, Duroc x Landrace and reciprocal crosses between the Large White and Landrace were used. The study embraced the milk production, milk composition and the performances of both sows and their litters. Results obtained indicate that milk production was quite low with the average eight week production of 73.99 kg of the indigenous sow to 153.21 kg of the Duroc x Large White crosses. However, percentage milk constituents were quite high with values of 19-23%, total solids, 7 - 9.2% fat, 6.9 - 7.5% protein, 4.6 - 6.0% Lactose, 0.7 - 0.9%, 0.19 - 0.35% Calcium and 0.11 - 0.20% phosphorus in both colostrum and milk. The yield of milk nutrients were similarly high, namely protein 92-175, fat 119—228 and total solids 291—576 g/sow/day and a corresponding yield of protein of 306 - 334, and fat 310 - g/kg dry matter. Litter size and litter weights at birth were quite comparable with what obtains under temperate conditions yet litter weaning weights were suboptimal in the range of 4.4 - 10 kg per piglet at eight weeks. Contrarily efficiency of milk utilization was very high and in the neighbourhood of 4 - 6 kg milk per kilogram weight gained for the pure bleeds and 2 -3 kg for the crossbreeds. Milk yield per metabolic body size was insignificantly different with values of 3.7 - 4.3 kg recorded. A high phenotypic correlation between milk and body weight at farrow could be a measure of increasing milk production of the smaller bodied indigenous pigs through selection for body size While the crossbred sows outweighed the pure breeds in their reproductive performance, all breeds suffered from seasonal fluctuation which depresses the milk production and reproductive efficiency. It can be stated that milk production of the sow is not the only limiting factor to higher productivity under the tropical condition. It is a combination of environment and management procedures in that seasonal depression has been implicated in most of the traits studied. Another major contributing factor has been the sub-clinical level of hygiene under which the animals exist. Reports have indicated that crossbreds are less susceptible to performance problems when they are bred and selected in the environments in which they are expected to perform as borne out by the results of this study. Crossbreeding might be a solution to most of these breeding problems especially by incorporating favourable genes of adaptation, disease resistance and some yet to be discovered traits in our indigenous pigs with those of the exotic purebred to develop a new breed of pig in the tropics for the tropics. The results were therefore discussed in the light of superiority of crossbreeding and adaptation of the indigenous sow.