1636
PERFORMANCE AND DRY MATTER DIGESTIBILITY OF FINISHING LAMBS FED DIETS WITH GROUND CANOLA GRAINS
Canola seeds have 42-43% EE, 20% CP, and they can be used as a source of protein and energy for ruminants. The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the effect of ground canola grain (GCG) or canola meal (CM) and canola oilseed (CO) added to a concentrate diet (14.59% CP and 2.8 Mcal ME/kg DM) on finishing 21 Pelibuey x Texel lambs (32.09 ± 5.48 kg initial BW) housed in metabolic cages during 42 days. The experimental design was completely randomized with three treatments: T0: 4.6% CM, 67% sorghum grain, 19.5% alfalfa hay; T1: 7.5% GCG, 63.5% sorghum grain, 19.5% alfalfa hay; T2: 4.5% CM, 3% CO, 64% sorghum grain, 19.5% alfalfa hay (all diets contained 5% cornstalk, 2% cane molasses, 1% urea, 1% premix); and seven replications (lambs) per treatment. Variables were average daily gain (ADG, g), daily DM intake (DDMI, g), feed conversion (FC), carcass yield (CY, %) and DM digestibility (DMD, %). Data were analyzed using MIXED procedure (SAS v 9.0) and treatment means were compared with Tukey test (P≤0.05). Addition of ground canola grain to the diet did not change ADG (321, 382, 391 g; P=0.14), DDMI (1796, 1671, 1790 g; P=0.54), FC (5.75, 4.47, 4.64; P=0.09), CY (54.13, 52.15, 52.16 %; P=0.45) and DMD (74.14, 78.80, 73.87 %; P=0.13). Since there were no differences among treatments, it may be concluded that ground canola grain can be used in diets for finishing lambs.
Keywords: Canola grain, Performance and digestibility, Lambs.