Vet World   Vol.15   April-2022  Article-12

Feeding of faba beans (Vicia faba L.) enhances the growth performance of lambs

Background and Aim: The high price of conventional diet ingredients led livestock producers to search for alternative feed sources such as faba beans (Vicia faba L.; FB). This study aimed to evaluate the effect of feeding FB on the growth performance of lambs.

Materials and Methods: A total of 24 male lambs were distributed randomly into two groups and fed a control diet (CON; n=12) and 200 g/kg FB (FB200; n=12) dietary dry matter (DM). The study lasted for 70 days. The first 7 days were used for acclimatization, followed by 63 days of data collection (i.e., nutrient intake and digestibility and growth performance). A complete randomized design was used for the statistical analysis.

Results: The average initial body weight (BW) (20.54±0.798 kg) was similar between the diet treatment groups. Lambs fed the FB200 diet demonstrated higher (p≤0.008) nutrient intake than lambs fed the CON diet. The FB200 diet tended to improve the digestibility of DM, crude protein, and acid detergent fiber more than the CON diet (p≤0.072). Neutral detergent fiber and ether extract digestibility were higher (p<0.05) in lambs fed the FB200 diet than those fed the CON diet. Next, nitrogen retention increased (p<0.05) in lambs fed the FB200 diet compared with the CON diet. Final BW did not differ (p=0.221) between the two groups. However, the average daily gain was higher (p=0.028) in lambs fed the FB200 diet than in lambs fed the CON diet. Furthermore, the cost of gain decreased more (p=0.04) with the FB200 diet than with the CON diet.

Conclusion: The results obtained in this study demonstrate the feasibility of using FB in feeding growing lambs, as it was shown to improve growth performance and reduce the cost of diet and gain. Keywords: Awassi lambs, faba beans, growth performance, nutrient intake and digestibility.

Keywords: Awassi lambs, faba beans, growth performance, nutrient intake and digestibility.

How to cite this article: Al Shabuol NL, Obeidat BS (2022) Feeding of faba beans (Vicia faba L.) enhances the growth performance of lambs, Veterinary World, 15(4): 906-910.

Received: 08-12-2021  Accepted: 02-03-2022     Published online: 12-04-2022

Corresponding author: Belal S. Obeidat   E-mail: bobeidat@just.edu.jo

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2022.906-910

Copyright: Al Shabuol and Obeidat, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.