title: Castor beans hulls as a replacement for Tifton 85 hay in lamb diets.
abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of replacing Tifton 85 hay (0, 33, 66, or 100 %) with by castor bean hulls on the intake and nutrient digestibility and performance of 28 noncastrated lambs, averaging 7 months in age, 19.5 ± 2.0 kg average live weight, fed on diets based on forage cactus. The animals were housed in individual pens for 100 days. The digestibility trial occurred 40 days after the start of the performance using LIPE® as an external indicator for estimating fecal dry matter production. The replacement of hay with Castor beans hulls linearly decreased the intakes of dry matter, neutral detergent fiber, organic matter, and crude protein and reduced the digestibility coefficients of the dry matter, neutral detergent fiber, organic matter content, crude protein, and total digestible nutrient content. The hot carcass and true carcass yields were not influenced by the treatments and the feed conversion increased linearly. The empty body weight, live weight at slaughter, hot and cold carcass weights, total gain, and average daily gain decreased linearly with the replacement. The replacement of Tifton 85 hay with castor bean hulls reduced the intake of dry matter, crude protein and energy, consequently reducing the performance of the animals. However, as the regression coefficients were of low magnitude, data were subjected to analysis of variance and means were compared using the Dunnett test with diet without castor bean hulls set as the control treatment. The Tifton 85 hay can be replaced up to 66 % by castor bean hulls in finishing diets for lambs.
authors.affiliation: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Zootecnia, Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco (UFRPE), Rua Dom Manoel de Medeiros, s/n, Dois Irmãos, 52.171-900, Recife, PE, Brazil. rafaeldepaula@zootecnista.com.br
authors.forename: Rafael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: de Paula Xavier de Andrade
authors.forename: Marcelo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: de Andrade Ferreira
authors.forename: Stela Antas
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Urbano
authors.forename: Marcílio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: de Azevedo
authors.forename: Sabrina Carla Rodrigues
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Félix
authors.forename: Michelle Christina Bernardo
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: de Siqueira
authors.forename: Felipe José Lins
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Alves
authors.forename: Juana Catarina Cariri
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Chagas
mesh_terms: D000821:Animal Feed / Q000032:analysis*; D000824:Animal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D000818:Animals; D001938:Brazil; D029421:Cactaceae / Q000737:chemistry; D002367:Ricinus communis / Q000737:chemistry*; D004032:Diet / Q000662:veterinary; D004043:Dietary Fiber / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D004063:Digestion; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation; D034561:Sheep, Domestic / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*