Replacing roughage with tree barks in the feeding of nellore ram lambs

An experiment was carried out to study the effect of inclusion of different locally available tree barks in total mixed ration on performance and nutrient digestibility in Nellore ram lambs. A ninety-day feeding trail was conducted on twenty-eight Nellore Jodipi ram lambs (13.72±0.05 kg body weight), randomly allotted to four treatment groups with seven animals per treatment and were fed total mixed ration T1 (control), T2 (10% neem bark), T3 (10% tamarind bark), T4 (10% acacia bark). All the four total mixed rations were iso-nitrogenous. There was no significant (P>0.05) difference in total weight gain, average daily gain (ADG), dry-matter intake (DMI) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) among different treatment groups. The final body weight was comparable among the groups. The apparent digestibilities (%) of OM, DM, CP, CF, NFE and ADF were comparable among the groups. Whereas NDF digestibility (%) was significantly (P<0.05) higher in control (T1) followed by T4 or T2 and lowest (P<0.05) in T3. The nitrogen balance was not affected by inclusion of different tree barks in the total mixed ration. Thus, inclusion of different tree barks viz., neem, tamarind and acacia in total mixed rations did not show any deleterious effects on overall performance in Nellore Jodipi growing ram lambs.