Effects of palm oil and palm oil zinc soap supplementation on feed intake, feed digestibility, and performance in lamb

Abstract

This research aims to evaluate the effects of palm oil supplementation (PO) and palm oil zinc soap (POZS) supplementation on feed intake, feed digestibility, and performance of Indonesian local lambs. Fifteen male lambs with an initial body weight of 16.97 ± 1.99 kg in randomized block design were analyzed in three treatments. The diets included: basal diet (60:40 concentrate to forage) with no added supplement as control (CON), basal diet plus PO, and basal diet plus POZS. Rumen partial protected fats used in this research are POZS (75:25 zinc soap to palm oil). The treatment was analyzed for 70 days with two weeks of adaptation period. The data were analyzed statistically with analysis of variance using Minitab 16 after passing the assumption test. Tukey test is used (Honestly Significant Difference = HSD) for a significant difference. The data that did not pass the assumption test was processed using the Friedman nonparametric method. The results showed that the dry matter intake in both forage and concentrate were decreased in POZS even though the digestibility of feed and blood glucose levels were not affected by treatments. Daily weights gain significantly decreased compared to control, i.e. 93.25 g/day (CON) vs 78.43 g/day (PO) and 58.09 g/day (POZS) with low feed efficiency.