The use of a concentrate containing Meskit (Prosopis juliflora) pods and date palm by-products to replace commercial concentrate in diets of Omani sheep

A feeding trial using twenty-four ten-month old Omani native male sheep (BW 31.4 ± 1.10 kg) was carried out to evaluate the use of a local by-product based concentrate to replace a commercial concentrate. Sheep were divided into three groups of eight animals each. One group was fed a concentrate pelleted feed made mainly from local by-products including Prosopis pods, wheat bran, date syrup and date fiber. The other two groups were fed either a commercial concentrate or a 50:50 mixture of local and commercial concentrate. All groups were fed Rhodes grass hay ad lib. The animals that were fed the local by-product concentrate had the same amount of feed intake, grew at the same rate and had similar feed conversion ratio (13 kg feed/kg body weight) as those fed the other two concentrate rations. There was no effect of diet on haematological parameters or carcass composition. This experiment indicated that local feed resources could be used in manufacturing animal feeds to reduce feed cost without compromising animal performance. This also offers an environmental-friendly way of utilizing agricultural waste by-products.