Introduction

Goats play an important role in the rural economy of India, particularly in the arid, semiarid and mountainous regions of the country. They are major meat producing animal whose meat (chevon) is one of the choicest meat and has huge domestic demand. According to the 19^th livestock census (2012), the goat population in India is 135.17 million (Bulletin of 19^th Livestock Census, 2014). At present, the decreasing availability of land for goat husbandry practices necessitates the farmers to adopt alternative feeding management practices such as feeding of agro-industrial byproducts like dried distillers grain. Hence the present study was planned to study the growth performance of Tellicherry kids fed varying levels of dried distillers grains.

Materials and Methods

The trial was carried out in an organized goat farm, Injambakkam, Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu for a period of six months. Thirty six early weaned male kids aged around two months were selected and grouped into four as uniform as possible with regard to their body weight reared under intensive system. They were housed in lean to type asbestos roof sheds with rough kadappa floor which was partitioned into four sections by iron chain link. The floor space was provided at 0.4 m² per animal and provisions for feeding and watering arrangements were made hygienically as per standard methods. Wet distillers grains were collected in clean polythene bags from the brewery industry. The fresh distillers grains was spread on a large polythene sheet with one inch spread thickness and sun-dried for two days to minimize the moisture content (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Preparation of dried distillers grains

The distillers grains was turned three times a day to improve the drying process and it was together and covered with polythene sheet in the evening. The concentrate mixture was prepared with sun-dried distillers grains and the other ingredients as per calculated proportion for different treatment groups and per cent ingredient composition of control and experimental concentrate mixtures are presented in Table1.

Table 1: Per cent ingredient composition of control and experimental concentrate mixtures

The concentrate and roughage fed separately in a ratio of 60:40 based on 4 per cent body weight at morning and evening. Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) straw was used as a sole source of roughage. The body weight and body measurements such as body length, height at withers, heart girth and paunch girth were recorded initially and subsequently at fortnightly intervals before feeding and watering. The residual feed was collected on the subsequent morning to calculate the actual amount of feed consumed. The average daily gain, daily feed intake and feed conversion ratio were calculated. The data collected on various parameters were statistically analysed as per the methods described by Snedecor and Cochran (1985).

Results and Discussions

The proximate analysis of feedstuffs and concentrate mixture was carried out as per AOAC (2005) and data on the feed intake, body measurements and growth performance of experimental kids are presented in Table 2 and 3. The final body weight was significantly (P<0.01) higher in kids fed with diets containing 15 per cent DDG compared to control (Fig. 1). The result of the present study was in accordance with Hutchens et al. (2012) and Sahin et al. (2013) those who stated that nutrient digestibility of concentrate diet was increased with adding of dried distillers grains.

Table 2: Proximate analysis of experimental ration, pigeon pea straw and dried distiller’s grains

Table 3: Growth performance, feed intake and body measurements of kids fed varying levels of dried distillers grains

Means bearing different superscript in the same row differ significantly (P<0.01)

The average daily gain was significantly (P<0.01) higher in kids fed diets containing 15 per cent DDG (101.52 ± 1.75 g) followed by 10 per cent DDG (91.27 ± 2.43 g), 5 per cent DDG (80.67 ± 3.80 g) and 0 per cent DDG (75.00 ± 2.83 g). These findings are consistent with Adebowale and Ademosun (1981), Aregheore and Viulu (2006), Hutchens et al. (2012), Sahin et al. (2013), Murillo et al. (2016) and Let et al. (2017) those who stated that the kids supplemented with dried distillers grains had higher average daily gain than non-supplemented group due to the higher availability of rumen undegradable protein which led to increased availability of protein for the growth performance.

The average daily dry matter intake was non-significantly higher in diets containing dried distillers grains than control group. Aregheore and Viulu (2006), Schauer et al. (2008), Gurung et al. (2009), Tilahun et al. (2013), Murillo et al. (2016) and Nazan et al. (2016) observed dry matter intake was not different among treatments when goats were fed with varying levels of dried distillers grains but feed intake increased linearly with increased level of dried distillers grains due to increased palatability of the rations. These findings were closely related to the results of the present study. The feed conversion ratio was non-significantly lower in diets containing dried distillers grains. Etchu et al. (2012) observed feed conversion ratio was lower in weaner rabbit diet which containing 25 per cent brewers dried grain. The final body measurements such as body length, height at withers, chest girth and paunch girth of kids revealed no significant difference among treatment groups initially and in subsequent fortnights. All the body measurements increased with increase in live weight and age. Elangovan (2004) observed similar trend in Kanniadu in which the body measurements increased with increasing body weight and age. It can be concluded from the observations that the differences in the body weight of kids fed varying levels of dried distillers grains were also reflected in the body measurements and it have direct correlation with body weight.

Conclusion

The above findings showed that kids supplemented with dried distillers grains performed well over non-supplemented group. The dried distillers grains can replace a portion of soybean meal and maize up to 15 per cent of the concentrate diet and significantly increase the body weight gain in growing meat goats. However, inclusion of dried distillers grains up to 15 per cent in concentrate diet as an alternative feed for goats.

Reference

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