• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.127-132
• /
• 1996

Effects on feed intake, liveweight gain and economic benefits of supplementing lambs with urea molasses blocks, were studied. Forty eight crossbred lambs were divided into 6 groups and assigned randomly to grazing on native pasture (CONT) or along with supplements of Commercial ration (COM) and urea molasses blocks (UMBs) containing two levels of cement and calcium oxide as a binding agent. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant (p<0.01) differences in dry matter (DMI, g/day), crude protein (CPI, g/day) and metabolizable energy (MEI, MJ/day) intakes. Differences in liveweight gain (LWG, g/day), feed conversion ratio (FCR) and net economic benefit of supplementation were also highly variable. The intake of DM, CP and ME varied from 974 to 1002, 66-70 and 7.6-8.4 in lambs supplemented with UMBs, significantly (p<0.01) greater than 848, 52.5 and 5.6 in lambs supplemented with COM or FCR and net economic benefits (54.3; 57.8; 17.1 and 1.96; 2.4) in lambs supplemented with COM and UMB-2, were CONT or supplemented with UMB-1, UMB-3 and UMB-4 respectively. Factors responsible for differences in feed intake, liveweight gain and economic benefits, are discussed.