FEEDING STUDIES ON LAMBS IN UPPER EGYPT

In Egypt. animals are suffering from feed shortage, particularly during summer, and perhaps surplus or just enough feed resources dur­ing winter. The balance between nutrient requirements of livestock and traditional feed resources was negative. The annual deficit was about 22.9 and 0.9 million tons of TDN and DCP, respectively. At the same time, livestock numbers need to be doubled to safe the minimum amount of animal protein required for the Egyptian population as esti­mated by El-sayes (1993). To increase the cultivated land and livestock populations, Egyptian government started a great reclamation project in upper Egypt (Wady EI•Saaida, east Ewinat and Toshka). These projects included animal production, which indeed. should increase the problem of shortage of foodstuffs in Egypt, specially in summer. The number of ani­mal units in Upper Egypt is 21.6 % of the total number of animal units in Egypt, while, the production of concentrate feed mixture (CFM) in Upper Egypt is only 11 % of the total production on Egypt. Then, there are shortage of about 50 % in (CFM) in Upper Egypt. Therefore, all the sources suitable for feeding animals such as barley grain, crop residue and roughages must be used. The problems of feeding roughage to ani­mals can be summarized as follows: Low digestibility, low protein con­tent and poor feeding intake. The low digestibility is due to its content of cellulose, hem:cellulose and lignin. Cellulose and hemicellulose can eas­ily be attacked and digested by microorganisms in the rumen, where lig­nin, generally speaking, is indigestible, because lignin-decomposing mi­crobes are aerobic. The low digestibility of roughage is due to the bonding between lignin and cellulose and hemicellulose. This component is resistant to microbial attack. Thus, the way to increase digestibility is to destroy the linkage of hemiceffulose and cellulose with lignin. This has been tried with mechanical, biological and chemical methods. Treatment of poor quality roughages by 4% urea was recommended to improve their feeding value and reduce the feed cost producing meet from grow­ing lambs. This research study was conducted to find a suitable feeding system for the newly reclaimed land in Upper Egypt, depending on the available crops found in these lands such as: Barley grains. chopped Barley straw treated with 4% urea and conserving the surplus of berseem as a hay to be used in summer feeding.