ICARDA Caravan, Issue No. 24

Focus

Lamb Fattening
for Higher Income

Luis Iniguez, Safouh Rihawi, Maria
Wurzinger and Wilhelm Knaus

In large parts of West Asia, sheep production has been mainly subsistence-oriented, providing meat and milk for the household, and some cash from the sale of surplus animals or products. But this is changing. Demand for meat is growing, creating opportunities to produce for the market. Livestock producers are increasingly moving from extensive to intensive production to capture these opportunities. Rather than leaving their animals to rangeland grazing, farmers purchase feed supplements to fatten the animals for sale, targeting markets in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the affluent Gulf countries.

Sheep researchers experiment. How to get animals fatter, faster?

Awassi rams at the start of the fattening trial.

A recent analysis showed that in these intensive systems in Syria there is considerable demand for lower-cost fattening methods. ICARDA scientists are using a two-pronged approach: testing various low-cost feed options and simultaneously exploring whether the animals’ genetic variability can be exploited to breed animals that will grow faster under intensive feeding.

Genotype testing, low-cost fattening
The Awassi sheep is an indigenous West Asian breed, adapted to the dry environments of the region. It has high growth rates, and responds well to feed supplementation. There are different genotypes of Awassi in West Asia. The Turkish Awassi, for example, has a larger frame and better milk production ability than the Syrian Awassi.

ICARDA researchers conducted a participatory trial to compare on-farm fattening performance of two Awassi genotypes: pure Syrian Awassi and crossbred lambs (first-generation crossbreeds with Turkish sires and Syrian dams). The trial was conducted at a private farm in El Bab, northern Syria.

Eighty male lambs – 40 pure Syrian, 40 crossbreeds – were used in the trial, all raised under identical conditions by the farmer participating in the project. Once the lambs were weaned, a 49-day fattening trial began, comparing the performance of the two groups under three different feeding regimes – two alternative low-cost diets and a traditional (control) diet used by many farmers in spring.

In the control diet, sheep were grazed on green barley, supplemented with an expensive concentrate (barley grain 60%, cotton seed meal 10%, soybean cake 10%, broken wheat bran 15% and barley straw 5%).

The two alternative diets were:

•	semi-intensive feeding based on vetch grazing with minor supplementation with a low-cost diet
•	intensive feeding, based exclusively on feeding with the same low-cost concentrate used in the semi-intensive diet (molasses 20%, barley grain 30%, cotton seed meal 10%, wheat bran 15%, broken wheat 20% and barley straw 5%).

Fattened Awassi lambs feeding on vetch.

Although the intensive and semi-intensive regimes used the same supplement, the semi-intensive required only one-fifth the amount of supplement per animal per day. The traditional supplement contained 60% barley grain whereas the supplement under the other two regimes contained only half this amount. In some places molasses, a cheap, high-energy supplement available in the region, was used to replace barley. In addition, the semi-intensive regime included a significant proportion of vetch forage, rather than barley forage. Vetch is a drought-tolerant, high-protein forage crop that ICARDA is testing and promoting in several countries. Vetch also improves soil fertility by fixing nitrogen, and could be included successfully into rotations to halt cereal monoculture.

How did the Awassi genotypes compare?
In terms of weight, it was no contest. Crossbred lambs were heavier than pure Syrian lambs at every stage, and 31% heavier at the end of the trial.

This was expected, because Turkish Awassi and crossbreds are appreciably bigger than Syrian animals. Crossbred lambs recorded slightly more weight gain and faster average daily gain than pure Syrian Awassi lambs: 15.5 kg/lamb and 316 g/day versus 14.9 kg/lamb and 305 g/day.

However, these differences were not statistically significant. Therefore, at this level of breeding, the crossbred lambs, although heavier than pure Syrian Awassi, did not show any improvement in fattening performance.

Response to the different diets
The alternative diets promoted faster growth and larger weight gains than the traditional (control) diet, but these differences were not statistically significant. This meant that the proposed diets could produce results similar to the traditional diet and eventually substitute it.

The intensive and semi-intensive diets were 16% and 12% cheaper, and promoted similar or even better growth than the traditional diet. The semi-intensive diet (with molasses and vetch) required much less purchased feed – a key factor for poor small-scale producers – and gave the highest growth rates. Molasses compensated not only for direct vetch grazing but also for concentrate diets.

Implications
Considering that total weight gain and growth performance of crossbred and pure Syrian Awassi lambs were practically the same, lambs with 50% Turkish breeding do not seem to constitute a technological option for improved fattening systems. However, the technology does allow farmers to produce larger (at least 31% larger) animals than the local genotype, benefiting from the additional meat sold.

Sheep can be fattened for less. Alternative diets cost less, promote faster growth, and could substitute traditional diets.

The study confirmed that lamb fattening diets are feasible in Syria and that the use of molasses can improve feeding systems in the country and the region. One interesting option: graze the sheep on vetch if it rains during the spring. This will reduce feeding costs by at least 12%, providing green fodder for up to 90 days, with the added benefit of improved soil fertility.

The collaborating farmers benefited from the results of this trial, and there is strong community interest. However, access to molasses is a constraint because it is not sold to producers directly.

ICARDA has held meetings to bring together farmers in the El Bab region, government officials, extension staff, and feed companies to overcome the delivery problem.

The government is already taking steps to facilitate access to molasses and provide farmers with this option to reduce feeding costs. Broader adoption, and the necessary policy support, will help ensure that poor, small-scale livestock producers get a bigger share of West Asia’s growing market for meat.

	___________________________________________
	Luis Iniguez (l.iniguez@cgiar.org) is Senior Small-Ruminant Scientist; and Safouh Rihawi is a Research Asssitant at ICARDA. Maria Wurzinger is Animal Breeder, Wilhelm Knaus is Animal Nutritionist, at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), Austria.

Contents | About ICARDA and the CGIAR | From the Director General
Table of Issues | ICARDA Publications | ICARDA Home