PIG FARMING AND SUN-DRIED RUMEN CONTENT IN THE RATIONS OF WHITE LEGHORNS AND YORKSHIRE PIGS

Abstract

This PhD dissertation is based on three studies. The first was a survey work aiming to describe and compare the current pig production practices in and around Bishoftu and Holeta towns, central Ethiopia. A total of 20 and 23 pig farms from Bishoftu and Holeta towns respectively were visited. The second study was aimed at establishing the effects of inclusion of sun dried bovine rumen content (SDRC) as ingredients in diets of pigs during post weaning growth phase for 90 days. A total of 20 Yorkshire weaned piglets about 7 weeks old with initial body weight (BW) of 12±5 kg (mean±SD) were used. Pigs were blocked into five groups of four animals based on initial BW and treatment diets were allocated to animal within group. Dry matter (DM) and nutrient intake, dgisetibility, average daily gain (ADG), feed conversion efficiency (FCE), and blood parameters were measured. The third study was conducted to determine feed intake, body weight change, egg laying performances, and blood parameters of layers supplemented with different levels of SDRC in a period of 90 days. One hundred-eighty five months of age of White Leghorn layers with average initial body weight of 978±10 gram (mean±SD) and 24 cocks were used. In both on station studies treatment were diets containing 0, 5, 10, and 15% SDRC for T1, T2, T3, and T4, respectively. The DM, CF, EE, and ME contenet of sun dried rumen contenet (SDRC) were 85.36, 22.99, 1.22%, and 1099 kcal/kg DM, respectively. The results of the survey study showed that backyard small scale traditional pig farming had similar (P > 0.05) husbandry practices such as housing, feeding and breeding prevails in the two study areas. Households identified problem of feeding, low reproductive rate, high mortality rate due to different diseases, lack of local market, and shortage of financial services as bottlenecks for pig production. The results of chemical analysis indicated that SDRC is a fibrous feed ingredient with NDF (61.17%) and ADF (47.12%) and had a CP content of 11.2%. Daily DM and CP intakes in weaned pigs did xiii not differ (P>0.05) between control group and those fed SDRC containing diets. Nutrient digestibility also did not affected. There were significant differences (P<0.01) in ADG among dietary treatments, with weaner pigs in T4 gaining lower (224g) than other treaments. The FCE also followed a similar trend like that of ADG (P<0.05). Blood PCV, RBC, WBC were similar among treatment (P>0.05) and values were within the normal range. In the 3rd study DM intake of T1 was lower (P<0.05) than T3. There were positive responses in the weight gain of birds up to 10% level of SDRC inclusion. Total eggs produced per bird, HDEP (%), HHEP, egg mass, and FCE were lower (P<0.05) for T4 than other treatments. Egg weight was comparable for birds fed with SDRC containing diets, except for the eggs laid by the hens on control diet that were smaller (P<0.05) (46.92 g) as compared to T2 and T3. Egg mass was lower (P<0.05) for birds fed T4 ration. Among egg quality parameters, only egg shell weight, haugh unit, yolk diameter and yolk color (RCF) were significantly affected (P<0.05) by dietary treatments. Fertility, hatchability, early and mid-embryonic mortality showed no differences among treatments. The result of blood analysis showed treatments had no negative effect on the health status of the birds. We conclude that the constraints identified by pig keepers need to be considered while designing pig production improvement programs and that SDRC could serve as a useful feed ingredient for monogastrics, and can be included up to 10% in the diets of both pigs and layers without compromising production performance and the health status of the animals.