Effects of Supplementing Finger Millet (Eleusine coracana) Straw with Dried Poultry Dropping Based Diet on the Performance of Konkan Kanyal Goats

This experimental trial was conducted to study the effects of dried poultry dropping based diets on the dry matter intake, live weight changes, nutrient digestibility and N-balanceof Konkan Kanyal goats. Thirty Konkan Kanyal goats aged between 9-12 months and with average weight of 13.66 kg were used in a ran-domized block design (RBD) experiment. The experimental goats were randomly assigned to five treat-ments (TI-T5). T1 were goats fed with 0% dried poultry droppings based diets (DPDBD), T2 were fed with 20% dried poultry droppings based diets (DPDBD), T3 were fed with 40% dried poultry droppings based diets (DPDBD), T4 were fed with 60% dried poultry droppings based diets (DPDBD), T5 were fed with 80% dried poultry droppings based diets (DPDBD). Mean dry matter intake (kg) was higher in treatment groups supplemented with dried poultry droppings based diet T2, (572.99±18.12), T3, (614.09±27.76), T4, (605.37±32.79), T5 (619.24±9.15) in comparison to the control treatment group T1, (571.47±28.86). The final live body weight (kg) was significantly (P<0.05) higher in T5 (19.4±1.27) than T1 (14.72±1.02), T2 (15.45±0.88), T3 (16.03±0.48) and slightly higher than T4 (18.28±1.19). Similarly in feed conversion effi-ciency T5 (9.0±0.28) and (8.34±0.44) T4 performed significantly (P<0.05) better compared to other treat-ment groups: T3 (3.53±0.29), T2 (2.88±0.48) and T1 (2.89±0.34). Nutrient digestibility was significantly higher (P<0.05) in T5 in all parameters measured, N-balance was positive across the treatment groups with significant differences across the board. The results of this study suggests that feeding of dried poultry droppings based diets up to 80% inclusion to Konkan Kanyal goats consuming finger millet straw as basal diet would improve the feed value and give satisfactorily performance.