ABSTRACT

An experiment was carried out to investigate the performance of' WAD goats fed forage supplemented with concentrate in a completely randomized design. The ['ceding trial lasted lbr 60days and was done using 1 2 growing male goats (aged 3 - 4 months). They were grouped into 3 treatments having lout' goats per treatment. 'ftc cued o1 diets oii growth performance, diet intake and carcass characteristics were determined. The diets comprised Treatment 1 (1 00% forage 0% concentrate), Treatment 11(75% forage 25% concentrate) and Treatment 111 (25% I'orage : 75% concentrate) ai id water gi 'cn ad I/b//yin. 'l'he UCSLI It ol' the study on daily weight gain revealed no significant difference (P>0.05), thoLigh generally better on 'I'reatment 11 (199. 13g). The total daily feed intake and elliciency ol' I'ced util izatiolt were higher in 'l'reatiiieiil I (I .46kg and 54.89kg respectively) (P<0.05). The study on carcass characteristics showed that the empty carcass weight revealed significant diflérence (P><0.05) and was highest iii Treatment I (1 .05kg). The yield percentage was generally better in Treatment III with 32.5% but showed non significant difference (P>0.0S) to other treatment values including the control. 'I'hough the animals were picked at random the live weight at slaughter was observed best in Treatment 1 (6.1 2kg), but revealed no signiflcant (P>0.05) difference among Treatments. The wholesale cuts (shoulder, hotel rank, loin and leg) l'ol I owed the same trend as in the live weight which showed that the Treatment had the best result, while the result on the breast was noted highest as in 'J'reatment 111 (0.08kg) (P>0.05). The xii weight ol' Pelt WUS highest iii i'reatnieiit 111 (0.43kg) (P-0.05), \Vllere the length of pelt was noted longest in the 'l'reatment 1 (53.00cm) (P>0.05). 1 lowever the width of the pelt were similar as observed in the 'I'reatmcnts I and III but revealed no significant difFerence (P>0.05). The weight of' the head, visccra, heart, liver and kidney also revealed nO 51gm flcant dillerence (P>0.05). The fat showed significant difference (P<0.05) with Treatment II having the poorest. Therefore, it was concluded that the supplementation of 75% and 25% concentrate to fresh forage for the growing buck — kids proved the best results and are recommended for the local Ihrmers, under the Nigerian condition. >