Supplementation of Dry Brewer's Grain to Lower Quality Forage Diet for Growing Lambs in Southeast Nigeria

Twenty yearling lambs of Southeast Nigeria dwarf, liveweight ($18{\pm}1.9 kg$) were grouped into 5 treatments. Dry brewer's grain was substituted for maize offal in the experiment diets namely A to E at 0%, 15%, 30%, 45% and 60% respectively, as supplement to low quality, dry season cassava leaf top and Andropogan gayanus hay at 1:1 ratio that lasted for 56 days. After which 5 of the lambs (average bodyweight=$24.3{\pm}1.5kg$) were transferred to metabolism crates to determine the digestibility and nitrogen/protein balance studies. While the mean group intakes were (945.9, 996.1, 1,040.5, 1,148.5 and 1,037.7 g conc. DM/day), the growth rates were (115.1, 124.1, 152.5, 168.5 and 123.1 g liveweight gain/day), respectively. There was a recorded decline in both intake (p>0.05) and growth rate (p<0.05) as the level of dry brewer's grain was increased beyond 45% of the supplement. Similar trend was observed on the protein and organic matter efficiency ratios (p>0.05) together with the organic matter intake. The urine nitrogen output was also significant (p>0.05). The work further revealed that, at a certain critical level of intake, dry brewer's grain is able to support growth rates measurable to or better than those noted when feeding maize offal to lambs, and went on to prove dry brewer's grain as an attractive supplementary feed for the drier months of the year, in the Southeast of Nigeria.