REGULAR ARTICLES

Feeding value of different levels of malt sprout and katikalaatella on nutrient utilization and growth performance of sheepfed basal diet of Rhodes grass hay

Ajebu Nurfeta & Yunus Abdu

Accepted: 18 December 2013 /Published online: 4 January 2014# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract Nonconventional agro-industrial by-products suchas traditional liquor residues (locally called katikala atella) arewidely used by livestock farmers in Ethiopia. The objective ofthis experiment was to evaluate the supplementary value ofkatikala atella and malt sprout (MS) on performance of sheepfed a basal diet of Rhodes grass hay. Thirty intact yearlingmale sheep with an average initial body weight of 17.4±0.74 kg (mean±SD) were assigned to the treatments in acompletely randomized block design: atella alone (T1),75 % atella+25 % malt sprout (MS) (T2), 50 % atella+50 %MS (T3), 25 % atella+75 % MS (T4), MS alone (T5), andRhodes grass hay alone (T6). Grass hay was fed ad libitum toall treatments. The total dry matter (DM) and organic matter(OM) intakes of sheep fed T4, T5, and T3 diets were thehighest (P<0.05), while sheep receiving T6 had the lowestDM intake. The highest (P<0.05) total crude protein (CP)intake was for sheep fed T5 diet, while the lowest was forthose fed T6 diet. Sheep receiving T3 diet had higher(P<0.05) DM, OM, CP, neutral detergent fiber (NDF), andacid detergent fiber (ADF) digestibility as compared withthose fed T1, T2, and T6 diets. Sheep supplemented with50–100 % malt sprout had similar (P>0.05) DM, OM, CP,NDF, and ADF digestibility. The highest (P<0.05) averagedaily gain was for sheep fed T3, T4, and T5 diets, while sheepin T6 lost body weight. Sheep fed T5 diet had the highest(P<0.05) nitrogen retention, while those fed T6 diet had thelowest. The study has shown that a mixture diet consisting of

equal parts of katikala atella and malt sprout (T3) are found tobe superior in most of the required nutrient characteristics.

Keywords Atella . Malt sprout . Grass hay . Adilo sheep

Introduction

Ruminant livestock in the tropics and subtropics receive mostof their dietary needs from native pasture and crop residues.However, natural pastures and crop residues are usually fi-brous, poor in digestibility, and devoid of most essentialnutrients including proteins, energy, minerals, and vitamins(Mekasha et al. 2003). Supplementation of low-quality feedwith concentrates including cereal grains has been limited indeveloping countries because of the escalating costs of cerealgrains, which is mainly caused by growing human popula-tions associated with periodic feed shortages. It is, therefore,desirable to augment alternative feed resources, particularlythose not being used for human consumption to meet the risein the demand of animal protein. One way to bridge this gap isto use agro-industrial by-products as supplement to roughage-based diets (Nurfeta 2012).

Presently, the use of agro-industrial by-products and cropresidues is becoming popular among the smallholder livestockowners as they are relatively cheap when compared with theconventional ingredients used in feed preparation (Nurfeta2010). Nonconventional agro-industrial by-products such astraditional brewery/liquor residues (locally called atella) arewidely used by smallholder livestock farmers in Ethiopia as asource of supplement to low-quality roughages, due to theirlow cost and availability in most household localities(Mekasha et al. 2003). It was indicated that 70 % of thehouseholds producing liquor (katikala) are involved in cattlefattening in Arsi Negele area of Ethiopia (Bekele et al. 2005),which indicates the significance of atella for smallholder

A. Nurfeta (*)School of Animal and Range Sciences, College of Agriculture,Hawassa University, P.O. Box 222, Hawassa, Ethiopiae-mail: ajebu_nurfeta@yahoo.com

Y. AbduDepartment of Animal and Range Sciences, School of Agriculture,Adama University, P.O. Box 193, Asella, Ethiopia

Trop Anim Health Prod (2014) 46:541–547DOI 10.1007/s11250-013-0527-8

farmers. Moreover, a wide range of conventional agro-industrial by-products, such as malting, brewers’, and dis-tillers’ by-products, are available in the tropics, which haveconsiderable nutritional potential (Mirzaei-Aghsaghali andMaheri-Sis 2008). However, supplementations with con-ventional by-products are limited due to low availabilityand localized distribution of processing plants (Nurfeta2010). But for those in the proximity of the factory,malting by-products, which are underexploited (Ben-Hamed et al. 2011), provide substantial quantity andquality of feed of huge significance for use during feedshortage.

Since most agro-industrial by-products are rich in energyand/or protein contents, supplementing low-quality feeds withsuch feed types enable ruminants to perform well due tohigher nutrient density to correct the nutrient deficiencies inthe basal diet (Mirzaei-Aghsaghali and Maheri-Sis 2008).Previous study indicated that supplementation of wheat strawwith atella resulted in similar weight gain with sheep that weresupplemented with concentrate (Nurfeta 2010). There is pau-city of information on the nutritional characteristics of tradi-tional distiller residues “katikala atella” and malting industryby-products in Ethiopia. Evaluating the nutritive value andutilization of these by-products will aid in the exploitation ofsuch feed types in the diets of animals in the tropical environ-ment where the use of local agro-industrial by-products is acommon practice especially under small-scale production sys-tems. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to evaluatethe supplementary value of malt sprout and traditional distillerresidues “katikala atella” on feed intake, digestibility, nitrogenutilization, and growth performance of sheep fed basal diet ofRhodes grass hay.

Materials and methods

Experimental animals and their management

Thirty intact yearling male Adilo sheep breed with an initialbody weight of 17.4±0.74 kg (mean±SD) were used for thisexperiment. They were housed in individual pens. Before thestart of the experiment, all sheep were ear tagged for identifi-cation, dewormed with albendazole against internal parasites,and also sprayed with acaricide against external parasiteas prescribed by the manufacturer. Sheep were acclima-tized for 2 weeks to the surrounding environment andfor another 2 weeks to the experimental diets before theactual feeding and digestion trials of 70 and 7 days,respectively. Throughout the experimental period, bodyweight was recorded every 2 weeks after overnightfasting before offering the morning feed. The initialand final weight was determined by taking the meanof two consecutive days body weight measurements.

Experimental feed preparation and feeding

The experimental feed was composed of Rhodes grass hay(Chloris gayana), traditional liquor residue (katikala atella),and malt sprout. The hay was chopped manually to a size ofapproximately 10 cm prior to feeding. Dried malt sprout waspurchased from Asella Malt Factory, Ethiopia. Atella used inthe study was collected from small-scale local distillers whodistil traditional liquor “katikala” on regular bases using com-monly maize, barley, millet, and sorghum.Wet atella was sun-dried by thinly spreading on aluminum coated, corrugatediron sheet using a fork to ensure uniform drying and to avoidclumping. After drying, the total amounts of atella required forthe experimental period were pounded in the mill.

Three hundred grams of supplementary feeds were offeredin separate troughs on as-fed basis in two equal halves at 8:00and 14:00 h. The total supplement was provided as recom-mended by Solomon et al. (2008). Animals were providedchopped grass hay to ensure ad libitum intake (10 % refusal).Clean water was available at all times. The amounts of feedsrefused, if any, were weighed and recorded separately everymorning, just before the day’s feed was distributed. The dailyfeed intake of individual animals was calculated bysubtracting the refusal from the total feed offered throughoutthe trial period. Samples of feed offered and refused werecollected and bulked daily, and 10 % of the collected sampleswere subsampled for chemical analysis.

Experimental design and treatments

The experiment was arranged in a randomized complete blockdesign with six treatments and five blocks of six animalsbased on initial BW. The diets were randomly assigned toeach animal in a block. The treatments consisted of thefollowing:

1. Grass hay ad libitum+100 % atella2. Grass hay ad libitum+25 % malt sprout+75 % atella3. Grass hay ad libitum+50 % malt sprout+50 % atella4. Grass hay ad libitum+75 % malt sprout+25 % atella5. Grass hay ad libitum+100 % malt sprout6. Grass hay only (control)

Digestibility trials

Immediately after the end of the feeding trial, the digestibilitytrial was carried out using all the animals. The trial was undertaken for seven consecutive days after 3 days of adaptationperiod, during which sheep was accustomed to carrying afecal collection bag and urine collection harnesses. The de-tailed method of digestibility experiment is described byNurfeta (2010).

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Chemical analysis

Samples of feed and feces used for chemical analysis otherthan N were dried at 60 °C for 48 h in a forced draught oven.Then, the dried samples were ground through a 1-mm screenusing a cross-beater mill (Thomas-Wiley, Philadelphia, PA,USA). The dry matter (DM), N, organic matter (OM), and ashcontents of the feed and fecal samples were determined ac-cording to AOAC (1990). The crude protein (CP) was calcu-lated as N×6.25. Neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and aciddetergent fiber (ADF) were determined according to VanSoest et al. (1991) using an ANKOM200 fiber analyzer(ANKOM Technology Corp., Fairport, NY, USA). The me-tabolizable energy (ME) content of feeds were estimated usingthe equation: ME (MJ/kgDM)=0.016 DOM (McDonald et al.2010) where digestible OM contents of the feeds DOMD%=100×(feed OM−feces OM)/feed DM.

Statistical analysis

Data on feed intake, weight gain, digestibility, and nitrogenutilization were subjected to the analysis of variance using thegeneral linear model procedure of SPSS, version 20 (SPSS2008). Duncan’s multiple range tests with a 5 % probabilitywas used to test the significant differences between treatmentmeans. The model used for data analysis was Yij=μ+Ti+Bj+εij, where Yij is the response variable, μ is the overall mean, Tiis the treatment effect, Bj is the block effect, and εij is therandom error.

Results

Chemical composition

Except for grass hay, the diets used in this experiment had highCP contents (Table 1). Malt sprout had a relatively higher CPcontent than other treatment diets. Grass hay had the highestNDF and ADF, while atella had the lowest NDF and ADFcontents. The highest hemicelluloses and NDS content were formalt sprout and atella, respectively, while the lowest hemicellu-loses and NDS content was for atella and grass hay, respectively.

Nutrient intake

Sheep fed T5, T4, and T3 diets had the highest (P<0.05) totalDM and OM intake, while sheep in T6 had the lowest DM andOM intake (Table 2). The highest (P<0.05) total CP intakewas for sheep fed T5 diet, while the lowest CP intake was forsheep received T6 diet. The supplement CP intake of sheepreceiving T5 diet was the highest (P<0.05) as compared withother treatments. Sheep fed T5, T4, and T3 diets had higherME intake than other treatment diet.

Nutrient digestibility

Sheep fed T3 diet had higher (P<0.05) DM, OM, CP, NDF,and ADF digestibility as compared with sheep fed T1, T2, andT6 diets (Table 3). Sheep supplemented with 50–100 % maltsprout had similar (P>0.05) DM, OM, CP, NDF, and ADFdigestibility.

Body weight change

Average daily gain of sheep in T3, T4, and T5 diets was higher(P<0.05) than other treatments, while sheep receiving onlygrass hay lost body weight (Table 4). The highest feed con-version efficiency was for sheep fed T3 diet, while those fedT6 diet were the lowest.

Nitrogen utilization

The highest (P<0.05) N intake was for T5 diet, whereas thelowest was for T6 diet (Table 5). Sheep fed T1 and T2 dietslost more (P<0.05) N in feces, while those fed on T6 diet lostthe lowest. On the other hand, sheep fed T4 and T5 diets hadthe highest urinary N loss, while those fed T6 diet had thelowest. The N retention of sheep fed T5 diet was the highest(P<0.05) compared with those in other treatment, while thosefed T6 retained the least. Except for T5, the percentages of Nretained in sheep fed T3 diet were the highest (P<0.05),whereas sheep fed T1 and T2 had the lowest (P<0.05) Nretention.

Table 1 Chemical composition (g/kg DM, unless specified) of diets usedin the experiment

Chemical components Atella T2 T3 T4 Maltsprout

Grasshay

Dry matter (g/kg) 917 914 913 909 907 918

Crude protein 214 234 255 270 302 41

Neutral detergent fiber(NDF)

409 435 479 528 544 716

Acid detergentfiber(ADF)

151 158 174 183 187 391

Ash 73 79 83 91 93 127

Neutral detergentsolublesa

518 486 439 382 363 156

Hemicellulosesb 258 276 305 344 357 325

ME (MJ/kg DM)c 12.2 12.1 11.9 11.7 11.6 8.5

T225 % malt sprout+75 % atella, T3 50 % malt sprout+50 % atella, andT4 75 % malt sprout+25 % atellaa Neutral detergent soluble (NDS)=OM−NDFbHemicelluloses=NDF−ADFcME (MJ/kg DM)=0.016 DOM

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Discussion

Chemical composition

The N content of diets used as supplement in this experimentwas higher than the minimum of 11.2 g/kg DM of N requiredin feeds to support acceptable ruminal microbial activity andmaintenance requirement of N for the host ruminant(McDonald et al. 2010). The CP value of atella used in this

trial was comparable with the CP values of 202 g/kg DMreported by Nurfeta (2010). Malt sprout had a higher CPcontent than that of air-dried atella; a mixture diet containinghigher level of malt sprout also had a higher CP content.

Nutrient intake

Results of this study (Table 2) implied that supplementation ofgrass hay with either malt sprout or atella increased the total

Table 2 Intake (g per day unless specified) of sheep fed basal diet of hay supplemented with different levels of malt sprout and atella

Intake Treatments SEM P value

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6

Dry matter

Basal feed 293b 328b 401a 418a 417a 431a 19.5 ***

Supplement 257b 268a 274a 273a 272a – 3.10 *

Total 550b 596b 675a 690a 689a 431c 19.9 **

Total (g/kg W0.75) 63.0c 69.9b 79.3a 81.2a 80.9a 50.8d 2.24 ***

Total (% BW) 3.06c 3.43b 3.88a 3.98a 3.97a 2.49d 0.11 ***

Organic matter 483b 522b 592a 604a 603a 366c 17.8 **

Crude protein

Basal feed 15.9c 18.6b 20.2a 20.9a 20.9a 21.4a 0.48 **

Supplement 54.9e 62.9d 69.6c 73.6b 82.2a – 0.68 ***

Total 71.3e 81.5d 89.9c 94.5b 103a 21.4f 0.74 ***

Neutral detergent fiber 294c 331bc 403a 430a 433a 291c 15.3 ***

Acid detergent fiber 142b 157b 193a 204a 203a 156b 8.6 **

Hemicelluloses 154b,c 174b 210a 226a 230a 135c 6.74 ***

ME (MJ/d) 6.71b 7.21b 7.99a 8.03a 8.08a 3.65c 0.23 **

T1100 % atella, T2 25 % malt sprout+75 % atella, T3 50 % malt sprout+50 % atella, T4 75 % malt sprout+25 % atella, T5 100 % malt sprout, and T6grass hay alone. A basal diet of hay was provided ad libitum for all treatments.

SEM standard error of mean, BW body weight

*P<0.05, **P<0.01, and ***P<0.001a–fMeans within rows with different superscript are significantly different (P<0.05)

Table 3 The apparent digestibility coefficient of sheep fed basal diet of hay supplemented with different levels of malt sprout and atella

Digestibility Treatments SEM P value

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6

Dry matter 0.51b 0.51b 0.61a 0.57a,b 0.57a,b 0.43c 0.02 ***

Organic matter 0.55b 0.55b 0.65a 0.61a 0.62a 0.47c 0.018 ***

Crude Protein 0.64c 0.66c 0.81a 0.77a,b 0.78a,b 0.59d 0.016 ***

Neutral detergent fiber 0.46b 0.48b 0.63a 0.57a 0.58a 0.46b 0.023 ***

Acid detergent fiber 0.41c 0.43c 0.59a 0.53a,b 0.53a,b 0.47b,c 0.028 **

Hemicellulose 0.50d,c 0.52c 0.66a 0.61b 0.63a,b 0.46d 0.020 ***

T1atella, T225%malt sprout (MS)+75% atella, T350%MS+50% atella, T475%MS+25% atella, T5MS, and T6grass hay alone. A basal diet of haywas provided ad libitum for all treatments

SEM standard error of mean

*P<0.05, **P<0.01, and ***P<0.001a–dMeans with the different superscript are significantly different (P<0.05

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DM, OM, and CP intake of the supplemented sheep. Thoughsupplementation of hay with wet atella has been reported toimprove the total DM and OM intake without affecting theintake of basal diet (Mekasha et al., 2002), supplementation ofhay with dried atella in this experiment has depressed the basalDM and CP intake of the animals as compared with the othersupplements. It should be noted that N intakes in Table 2 isslightly different to the N intakes in Table 5 because the valueswere obtained at different stages of the trial.

One of the factors that might have reduced the voluntaryfeed intake of atella could be the excessive heat applied duringthe alcoholic fermentations of katikala (Mekasha et al. 2003).Moreover, it was observed that sheep fed atella alone werefeeding more slowly as it was observed from the time taken tofinish the supplement offered. The results from Table 2 indi-cates that DM and OM intake was improved with inclusion ofmalt sprout in the diet which is consistent with the reports ofVan and Ledin (2005) who observed improvement in palat-ability in mixed ration. However, compared with those sheep

fed grass alone, there was a significant improvement in intakein sheep supplemented with atella alone. This indicates thatunder smallholder production system where malt sprout is notavailable, atella could be a good source of supplement in orderto improve productivity.

It was indicated that improvements in nutritive value offorage depend on increasing the supply of rumen N, therebyincreasing the digestibility of the fiber (Ben Salem and Smith2008). In this study, the higher CP contained in the supple-ments, compared with the control (grass hay), resulted inhigher nitrogen intake in the supplemented group. Even so,supplementation of hay with either atella or malt sprout in-creased the total CP intake. The increment in total and basalCP intake due to malt sprout (T5) supplementation could beattributed to the high DM intake and high CP content of maltsprout. Thus, as the level of malt sprout increased in themixture diet, CP intake of that diet was also increased.

The intake of N in all the treatments containing supple-mentary feed indicated that the levels of N in these diets are

Table 4 Body weight changes of sheep fed basal diet of hay supplemented with different levels of malt sprout and atella

Parameters Treatments SEM P value

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6

Initial body weight (kg) 17.38 17.42 17.46 17.44 17.44 17.40 0.07 NS

Final body weight (kg) 18.9b 19.1b 23.4a 22.4a 22.3a 17.3c 0.39 **

Total weight gain (kg) 1.13b 1.72b 5.90a 4.92a 4.84a −0.12c 0.37 **

Weight gain/day (g) 16.1b 24.6b 84.3a 70.3a 69.1a −1.7c 5.26 ***

FCE (g ADG/g DM intake) 0.03c 0.04c 0.13a 0.10b 0.10b −0.04d 0.01 ***

T1atella, T225%malt sprout (MS)+75% atella, T350%MS+50% atella, T475%MS+25% atella, T5MS, and T6grass hay. A basal diet of hay wasprovided ad libitum for all treatments

SEM standard error of mean

*P<0.05, **P<0.01, and ***P<0.001a–dMeans with the different superscript are significantly different (P<0.05

Table 5 Nitrogen utilization of sheep fed basal diet of hay supplemented with different levels of malt sprout and atella

Parameters Treatments SEM P value

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6

N intake (g/day) 11.8e 12.5d 14.4c 15.1b 16.6a 3.4f 0.16 ***

N in the feces (g/day) 4.3a 4.2a 2.8c 3.6b 3.7b 0.93d 0.16 ***

N in the urine (g/day) 1.2c 1.3c 2.1b 2.5a 2.5a 0.38d 0.17 ***

N retained (g/day) 6.3d 6.9c 9.1b 9.5b 10.4a 1.4e 0.25 **

N retained (% of intake) 52.6c 55.4c 65.8a 59.9b 62.7a,b 41.2d 1.94 *

T1atella, T225%malt sprout (MS)+75% atella, T350%MS+50% atella, T475%MS+25% atella, T5MS, and T6grass hay. A basal diet of hay wasprovided ad libitum for all treatments

SEM standard error of mean

*P<0.05, **P<0.01, and ***P<0.001a–fMeans with the different superscript are significantly different (P<0.05

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adequate for the daily gain obtained. The results are in accor-dance with the observation of Van Soest (1994) who reportedthat weight gain in ruminants is not compromised if the Ncontent of the diet is more than 12.8 g/kg DM. The diet in thepresent study suffices the minimum requirement. This indi-cates that both malt sprout and atella can be used as a goodsource of protein supplement for smallholder farmers whocannot afford to use conventional concentrate feeds.

The poor nutrient intake of sheep fed grass hay alone (T6)compared with the supplemented group could be due to thehigher NDF and low CP levels in Rhodes grass hay that arebelow the recommended minimum values for maintenance(Van Soest 1994). According to Van Soest (1994), higherNDF content could be a limiting factor on feed intake, sincevoluntary feed intake and NDF content are negativelycorrelated.

Nutrient digestibility

In this experiment, when either atella or malt sprout was usedto supplement the grass hay, the total digestibility (DM, OM,CP, and NDF) was greater for sheep supplemented with maltsprout as compared with those fed atella alone (Table 3). Thehigher CP contained in malt sprout as compared with atellacould be one of the reason for improvements in nutritive valueof hay, thereby increasing the digestibility of the fiber. Proteinsupplementation increases the rate of cell-wall carbohydratesdigestion of forages containing less than a CP content of80 g/kg DM (Van Soest 1994).

The lower nutrient digestibility of sole atella (T1) supple-ment compared with other supplements was possibly due tothe low palatability, hence low voluntary intake, and poordigestibility of this diet. Heating applied during alcoholicfermentations of katikala could make the proteins in atellamore resistant to ruminal degradation and reduce digestibility,by the formation (Maillard reactions) of nutritionally unavail-able dark-colored amino-sugar complex (Van Soest 1994).Mekasha et al. (2003) reported that lower DM intake, lowerfiber fraction, and high CP of atella resulted in an increasedrate of passage and thereby reduced retention time fordigestion.

The DM, OM, and NDF digestibility values obtained foratella in this experiment were comparable with the valuereported by Mekasha et al. (2003), but lower than the values(0.58 for DM, 0.62 for OM, and 0.50 for NDF) reported byNurfeta (2010). In contrast, the 0.64 CP digestibility value ofatella obtained in this experiment was higher than the values(0.38 and 0.51) reported byMekasha et al. (2003) and Nurfeta(2010), respectively.

The lower DM and OM digestibility value of atella used inthis trial as compared with the work of Nurfeta (2010) couldbe attributed to the difference in the physical characteristics ofatella used between the two experiments. Atella used in this

trial was sun-dried, while atella used in the work of Nurfeta(2010) was in a fresh (wet) form. The higher neutral detergent-soluble levels in atella (Table 1) as compared with malt sproutcould also contribute for lower digestibility of atella.

Growth performance

The better weight gain in the supplemented sheep comparedwith the nonsupplemented one could be due to the higherintake of CP and ME (Table 4) of supplemented sheep. Thegreater body weight gain for sheep fed T3, T4, and T5 dietscompared with other treatments showed that the supplementsin T3, T4, and T5 diets were better in nutritive value asmeasured by mean daily feed intake, nutrient digestibility,and feed conversion efficiency. Though the mean body weightgains of sheep among T3, T4, and T5 diets were statisticallysimilar, numerically, sheep in T3 diet had a higher mean bodyweight gains than those in T4 and T5 diets. This indicates thatT3 diet seems to be superior in nutritive value as measured bynutrient digestibility and feed conversion efficiency. However,the choice among treatment combination could depend on theavailability and economic feasibility of the by-products.

The higher mean body weight gains obtained from feedingmalt sprout (T5) as compared with feeding atella (T1) impliedthat malt sprouts have greater potential in effectively supply-ing the required nutrients for the sheep and thus enhanceddaily body weight gain. The low-growth performance ofsheep fed atella (T1) and mixture diet containing higher levelof atella (T2) can probably be attributed to low CP intake, lowdigestibility, and low feed conversion efficiency of this diet.The lowest mean daily weight gain observed in sheep fed T6diet (grass hay) compared with all the treatment groups waslikely due to the high fiber, low CP contents, low digestibility,and poor feed conversion efficiency of grass hay. Since sheepin the control group could not get the amount of protein andenergy needed to meet their maintenance requirements, therewas a loss of body weight (Table 4).

Nitrogen utilization

The positive N balance in this study (Table 4) indicates thatthe supplements were adequate for optimummicrobial proteinsynthesis and to maintain animal productivity, especially dur-ing the period of feed shortage. The higher amount of Nretained in sheep feed T5 diet could be due to the higher CPcontent, higher N intake, and relatively high N digestibility ofmalt sprout (T5). Similarly, the higher N retention observed insheep fed T3 and T5 diets, compared with other treatments,could be attributed to higher N digestibility and higher feedconversion efficiency of these diets. The lower N retentionand higher fecal N loss observed in T1 and T2 diets comparedwith other supplements could be attributed to low fiber andhigh CP content of atella. The heating applied during

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production of katikala could also have affected the N retentionin atella, as overheating of feed makes the N less digestible andless available to the animal (Van Soest 1994). The N retainedfrom sheep received T1 diet, which contained atella as a solesupplement in the current experiment, however, was higher thanthe values reported by Nurfeta (2010). In general, the N intake,N losses, and N retention of sheep in control group were lowerthan sheep in the supplemented groups. The lower N retentionobserved in sheep fed only grass hay could be attributed to thelow CP concentrations and low digestibility of grass hay.

Conclusion

This study revealed that malt sprout, katikala atella, and theirmixture diet were promising protein and energy supplements.Where either or both malt sprout and traditional agro-industrial by-products such as traditional brewery/liquor resi-dues are available, smallholder farmers in the tropics canenhance performance of their animals which are dependenton poor quality tropical grasses. However, it is important toview the benefit of these alternative feeds not only on theperformance but also on the basis of availability of theseresources and the income relative to input. The use of suchsupplements for grazing animals and dairy cows is worthinvestigating in the future.

Acknowledgments We would like to thank NORAD for the financialsupport.

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