Introduction and Capacity Building on an Innovative and Improved Small Scale Concentrated Feed for Sheep Fattening in Marsin Woreda, Somali Regional State, Ethiopia.

Abstract

Feed and water scarcity in quality and quantity is among noted production constraints along the value chain. Feed production covers requirements only in exceptional good years; the deficit reaching 35% in normal years and 70% in bad years (FAO, 2015), the technologies and knowledge generated so far have been confined to on-station experimentation and lacked participatory evaluation to facilitate technology or knowledge transfer in this Garwan kebele, Marsin woreda and the aim of the project was to introduce sheep fattening technologies for yearling breeds of black head Somali Sheep to attain the required market weight of 30kg and to capacitate the community about the shoat fattening technologies by practical training. The study was 10 sheep per pastoralists and a total of one hundred sheep’s included in this study, then randomly assigned to two treatments by drawing lot: control and finishing group and The
formulation of the feed for the experiment for sheep was Wheat bran (49.5%), Noug cake (49.5%) and common salt (1%). The responses of sheep to the feed supplementation that the average initial body weight was 15.01 while the average final body weight was 24.18 and the average total weight was 8.17 for sheep’s fattening performance. Average daily weight gains was 75.40 g/d and there was no significant difference (P>0.05) in final body weight and total weight gain between the entire agro-pastoralist.