EFFECT OF DIFFERENT PROTEIN LEVELS ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE, CARCASS TRAIT, DIGESTIBILITY AND SOME BLOOD BIEOCHEMICAL PARAMETERS IN AWASSI LAMBS

Abstract

Twenty one Awassi lambs (4 month old and 23.59 ± 031 kg body weight) were used to investigate the effect of different levels of protein on growth, carcass traits, body composition, digestibility and some blood parameters. The lambs were divided equally and randomly and penned individually into three treatment groups, and fed ad lib on low protein (129.1 T₁) medium protein (140.6 T₂) and high protein (151.1 T₃, g/kg DM). After 72 days of fattening, 5 lambs from each treatment were chosen randomly and slaughtered. The result showed that lambs fed on T₃ diet had significantly (P<0.05) higher daily gain (210.83 g), better feed efficiency (4.8 kg/kg), higher dressing percentage (51.67 %), and rib eye area muscle (12.05 cm²) than those fed in T₂ and T₃, as well as digestibility coefficient of dry matter, organic matter, crude protein, and total digestible nutrient (TDN) was also numerically higher in group fed (151.1 g/kg DM) as compared with lambs received low or medium level of protein. It could be concluded that the high dietary protein level produce the better performance, carcass traits and nutrient digestion of lambs.