ABSTRACT

A comparative evaluation of two creep diets formulated from two nitrogen 4 sources on the performance and blood parameters of lambs and Kids was undertaken in a 60-day study. The nitrogen sources, groundnut cake and soya bean cake, were included at 15% level in concentrate diets fed to six West African Dwarf(WAD) lambs and Kids. The animals aged 12 weeks and averaged 4 kg in weight. The study was designed as a 2x2 factorial experiment with diets and species as the main effects. Result showed that even though kids weighed generally higher in each of the eight weeks of study, irrespective of the creep diet fed, there were no significant differences (P>0.05) in the weekly weights of lambs and kids. Result of hematological analysis showed that apart from monocytes, levels of other parameters investigated (Haemoglobin, packed cell volume, Red blood cells, white blood cells, Neutrophils, Lymphocytes and Eosinophils) in blood were not influence (P>0.05) by either diet or species. Lambs generally had significantly higher (P<0.05) serum monocytes (2.83%) than kids (1.08%). Also soya cake promoted significantly higher (P<0.05) monocyte concentration in the blood of lambs and kids (3.0%) than groundnut cake (0.93%). Similarly, all biochemical parameters investigated (Creatinine, urea, total protein, globulin, bilirubin, SGOT, SGPT) were also not influence (P>0.05)by neither species nor diet. Groundnut and soya bean cake promoted fairly equal response of growth and blood parameters in the two ruminant species. These nitrogen sources could therefore be excellent sources of plant proteins for small ruminant production especially at their pre-wearnng stage of development in Nigeria.