Effect of diet with varying levels of dried grape pomace on dry matter digestibility and growth performance of male lambs

1 SUMMARY The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of different levels of dried grape pomace (DGP) on the growth performance of male lambs. Twenty-five 100-day-old Lori-Bakhtiari male lambs obtained with an initial live weight of 25 ± 0.21 kg were fed the experimental diets, which were formulated in accordance with the NRC-1994. Treatments were arranged in a completely randomized design of five treatments with 5 replicates each (0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% DGP) and observed during 84 days growth period. Dry Matter Intake (DMI) was measured daily and Daily Weight Gain (DWG) was determined fortnightly. Feeding male lambs on diets containing 5 and 10 % DGP significantly improved their growth performance (P<0.01) compared to the other treatments. In addition, digestibility of Dry matter (DM), Crude Protein (CP), Organic Matter (OM) and Neutral Detergent Fiber (NDF) of the diets, was significantly increased by adding 5 and %10 DGP to diet. The present results showed that utilizing DGP at 10% level of diet could be useful in fattening male lambs without negative effect on performance.