Nigerian ruminant farmers face poor animal nutrition during dry seasons, affecting productivity. A 90-day study evaluated the effect of oil palm leaf meal (OPLM) supplementation on the performance of West African Dwarf (WAD) weaner sheep. Fifteen WAD sheep aged 4-5 months were randomly assigned to three dietary treatments in a completely randomised design. Diets were supplemented with 0%, 10% and 20% inclusion levels of OPLM. At the end of the study, feed intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR), haematology and carcass characteristics were determined. Two millilitres of blood samples were collected from three sheep per treatment with a syringe and needle from the jugular vein into bottles containing ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) for haematology analysis. Three sheep per treatment were randomly selected, starved of feed for 12 h, slaughtered and the carcass was cut into parts and weighed using a sensitive scale. The weights of internal organs were expressed as a percentage of the live weight. The results showed that feed intake was significantly higher in the 20% OPLM diet and lower in the 10% OPLM diet and had the best FCR and average daily body weight gain of 11.36 and 80.37 g, respectively. Significant differences (p < 0.05) were observed among the groups on haematology and carcass characteristics. Therefore, OPLM can be included in the sheep diet up to 10% without compromising performance.
Essén et al. (Wed,) studied this question.