ABSTRACT

Twelve West African (WAD) ewes and their twelve lambs were used to study the effects of the ethno veterinary plant; Spondias mombin L (hog plum) on milk yield, milk composition, udder parameters, haematology, blood biochemistry and growth of lambs. The ewes were assigned to two treatments groups. T' and T2, representing the control and treated ewes, respectively. Spondias mombin L. was fed to ewes in treated (T2) group immediately after parturition at the rate of 1kg / ewe / day. Milking of ewes commenced from one week post partum and lasted for 12 weeks of lactation. Results show that S. mombin improved the milk yield of ewes in all the weeks with significantly higher differences (P<0.05) at the 3 and 8th weeks of lactation. At week 3 mean milk yield of ewes in the treated group was 61.66 ± 6.17g. while the mean milk yield of ewes in the control group was 40.31 ± 6.61g. By week 8, the mean yield of milk for the ewes in the treated group was 35.44 ± 3.76g while the ewes in the control group had mean milk yield of 21.28 ± 3.99g. There was no interaction (P>O.05) between week of lactation and group on milk yield. Colostrum of ewes in the treated group had higher total solids (TS) and solid-not-fast (SNF) content than that of ewes in the control group. This was significantly different (P<0.05). Milk lactose form treated ewes was 3.98 ± 0.05 and was significantly higher (P<0.05) than that of the control group which was 3.74 ± 0.04 at the 2 week of lactation. Also ash content of milk of ewes in the treated group was 0.98 ± 0.06 and was significantly higher (P<0.05) than milk ash of ewes in the control group which was 0.65 ± 0.06 at week 2 of lactation. At week 12, lactose content of milk of ewes in the treated group was 4.57± 0.07. This was significantly higher (P<0.05) than that of ewes in the control group which was 4.30 ± 0.09. Also ewes in the treated group had a significantly higher milk protein (P<0.05) of 6.19 ± 0.33 than those in the control Mt group which hail milk protein of 5.33 ± 0.15. Udder Length (UL) of treated ewes (9.78 and 7.75) was significantly higher (P0.05), except creatinine which was significantly lower (P<0.05) in the treated ewes (0.65 ± 0.02) than the control (0.73 ± 0.02). Lambs of treated ewes weighed more than those of control ewes in all the weeks but these were not significantly different (P>0.05).