Diets containing melon husk (MH) and palm oil slurry (POS) were fed as alternative feed stuffs to sixteen West African Dwarf (WAD) goats whose weight ranged between 9-10kg The WAD goats were assigned to 4 dietary treatments of 4 replicates each, and fed diets containing 0% MH 0% POS(Control diet, Diet 1), 50% MH 0% POS (Diet 2), 0% MH 50% POS (Diet 3), and 50% MH 50% POS (Diet 4), respectively for 8 weeks as finishing diets, Parameters such as nutrient intake, digestibility and growth performance were measured. Results showed average daily weight gains of 27.83, 26.33 and 22.83g/day by goats on diets 1, 4 and 2 respectively, which differed significantly (P<0.05) and corresponded with dry matter intake of 358.59, 359.39 and 357.29g/day, respectively. Although, animals fed Diet 3 had Dry matter intake of 359.39g/day, they had poor average daily weight gain of 17.17g/day and significantly (P<0.05) poor feed conversion ratio of 16.90, dressing percentage of 51.62% and live weight of 10.67kg. Goats on diets 1, 2 and 4 had dressing percentages of 55.43, 54.01 and 54.66% and corresponding live weights of 11.17, 10.83 and 10.93kg, respectively Goats on diet 4 significantly (p<0.05) greater offal weights than goats on other diets. It was evident that all the Diets had positive effect on growth performance except 50% POS. However, all the diets gave good dressing percentage and offal weights were equally influenced by diets.
Growth performance, nutrient intake, digestibility and carcass characteristics of goats fed melon Husk (Colocynthis citrillus) and palm oil slurry (Elaeis guineensis) at 50% inclusion level