EFFECT OF GREWIA OPPOSITE OF OLIA LEAVES AND CONVENTIONAL OIL CAKES AS FEED SUPPLEMENT ON CELL WALL INTAKE, DIGESTIBILITY AND NITROGEN RETENTION IN SHEEP

An experiment was conducted in a 4 x 4 Latin Square Design, involving four cross bred Kaghani x Rembouilet wethers of 50 kg ± 2 kg body weight, four diets and four feeding periods. There were four diets such as basal diet (A)consisted chopped sorghum hay, diet B composed of basal diet with cottonseed cake (CSC), diet C composed of basal diet with maize oil cake (MOC)) and diet D consisted of basal diet with Grewia oppositifolia leaves. The wethers were kept in individual metabolic crates. There were four feeding periods and the experiment was lasted for sixty days. Each phase was consisted of ten days adaptation followed by five days data collection period. The basal diet and cottonseed cake were higher in NDF (64.94% and 62.38%, respectively) than maize oil cake and G. oppositifolia leaves (52.40% and 48.48%, respectively) and ADF (42.68%, 36.63% respectively) than maize oil cake and G. oppositifolia leaves (19.80% and 30.63% respectively). The NDF digestibility was the same in the basal diet, CSC and MOC, which were 12-18 (g/day) higher (P 0.05) than G. oppositifolia leaves. The sheep fed diets A, B, C and D, the percent NDF digestibility was the same for diets A, B and C (53.11, 47.87 and 50.37 respectively) and statistically different (P 0.05) for diet D (35.96). The ADF digestibility was different (P 0.05) among four diets, which can be ranked as A C D B. An increase of 6.26-7.00 g/day in nitrogen intake in the basal diet was recorded when supplemented with G. oppositifolia leaves and other concentrate diets. The higher excretion of nitrogen was in the urine of the animals obtained from diet B followed by diet D and lower with diet A and C. The nitrogen excretion in feaces obtained of the animals from supplemented diets was higher than the basal diet. The higher nitrogen retention (55-60%) was recorded with supplemented diets than the basal diet when expressed in percentage. Based on the above findings, it is concluded that G. oppositifolia leaves can successfully replace the tested protein supplements by improved utilization of basal diet through higher nitrogen intake and retention.