The effect of feeding diets of different molasses levels on rumen fermentation digestibility, nitrogen balance and body weight gain in yearling sheep

Abstract

The effect of different molasses levels (30, 35, 40, and 45%) in the diet of sheep was 
investigated. Four rations were formulated so as to be iso-caloric and iso-nitrogenous, and in 
which the different molasses levels replaced groundnut hulls in a basal ration of wheat bran 
and groundnut cake. 32 yearling sheep were subjected to two trials, feeding and 
digestibility, where in the former a completely randomized design was used with eight 
animals in each treatment and in the latter a 4X4 Latin Square design was used. The results 
revealed that dry matter intake decreased steadily with the increase of molasses level, but no 
significant differences could be detected. Body weight gain increased (P<0.05) with the 30 
and 40% molasses levels although the amounts of nitrogen retained decreased (P<0.05) with 
the 40% level suggesting that the gain in weight could be due to fat deposition. Higher (P<0.05) 
amounts of nitrogen retention were observed with the 30 and 35% levels. Ether extract 
digestibility at the 35% level proved to be significant (P<0.05). Rumen pattern of fermentation 
or blood urea nitrogen did not differ much with the different diets. However, the 
sampling time showed that, rumen pH and rumen ammonia nitrogen decreased while 
rumen volatile fatty acids increased 6 hours post-feeding but without significant differences.