Effect of grinding on the enhancement of sorghum straw in the diet of Djallonke sheep in Burkina Faso

Valorisation de la paille de sorgho par le broyage

Abstract

Cereal straws constitute more than 85% of the crop residues used in animal feed in Burkina Faso. The animals that receive them perform sorting, resulting in large losses of fodder. To minimize these losses, processing technologies are developed through grinding. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of grinding on the enhancement of sorghum straws using in the diet of Djallonke sheep. The study was conducted on farm and covered 45 adult sheep. The effect of two forms of sorghum straws distribution (ground and unground) was studied. The results showed that grinding allows better valorization avoiding the loss of 37.19% of the straws. On the other hand, grinding resulted in a more efficient use of straw energy through lower feed conversion ratios (FCR) for ground straw (32.11). However, voluntary dry matter intake was lower higher in sheep fed ground straw (53.26 g/kg metabolic weight) than in those fed unground straw (70.23 g/kg metabolic weight). So, other techniques should be considered to improve the consumption of straws.