The Effect of Feeding Dried Tomato Pomace and Concentrate on Nutritional and Growth Parameters of Hararghe Highland Sheep, Eastern Ethiopia Kefyalew Gebeyew 1 , Getachew Animut 2 , Mengistu Urge 2 and Teka Feyera 3* 1 Jigjiga University, College of Dry Land Agriculture, PO Box 1020, Jigjiga, Ethiopia 2 Haramaya University, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, PO Box 138, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia 3 Jigjiga University, College of Veterinary Medicine, PO Box 1020, Jigjiga, Ethiopia * Corresponding author: Teka Feyera, Jigjiga University, College of Veterinary Medicine, PO Box 1020, Jigjiga, Ethiopia, Tel: +251-913-199649; Fax: +251257755976; E-mail: teka841@yahoo.com Rec date: Dec 12, 2014, Acc date: Dec 29, 2014, Pub date: Dec 31, 2014 Copyright: © 2014 Gebeyew K, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Most tropical feed resources particularly crop residues and hay are mostly deficient in protein content. Thus, maximization of livestock productivity in the tropical regions largely depends on the efficiency of utilization of locally available protein sources. This study was aimed to evaluate the effect of supplementation of dried tomato pomace, concentrate mix and their mixture on intake, apparent digestibility, and live weight of Hararghe highland sheep fed a basal diet of natural pasture hay. The study was conducted using 24 yearling intact Hararghe highland male sheep with mean initial body weight (BW) of 16.7±2 (Mean ± SD). The experiment consisted 90 days feeding and 7 days digestibility trials. The experimental sheep were blocked into 6 blocks of 4 animals based on their initial BW and randomly assigned to one of the four treatments within a block. Treatments were ad libitum feeding of hay alone (T1), hay supplemented with 359.61 g dried tomato pomace (DTP; T2), hay supplemented with 300 g concentrate mix (CM=33% Noug seed cake (NSC) +67% Wheat Bran (WB); T3), and hay with 1:1 ratio of DTP and CM (T4). The crude protein (CP) content of hay, DTP, NSC and WB used in this study were 9.1, 17.8, 29.6 and 17.2%, respectively. Apparent digestibility of dry matter (DM) was 63, 61, 70 and 67% and that of CP was 66, 74, 81 and 77% for T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively. Digestibility of DM was higher for T3 as compared to T1 and T2, while values for T4 were similar with T1 and T3. Digestibility of CP was highest for T3, lowest for T1 and intermediate for the other two treatments. Average daily gain (ADG) was lowest for T1 (30 g/day), and among the supplemented treatments values for T4 (65 g/day) was numerically higher than that for T3 (58 g/day) and T2 (57 g/day). Feed conversion efficiency also showed more or less a similar trend to ADG. Taken as a whole, the present finding evidenced that dried tomato pomace can replace concentrate mixture 100% as a supplement to sheep fed a basal diet of natural pasture hay. Keywords: Dried tomato pomace; Feed intake; Digestibility; Sheep Background Sheep production systems in Ethiopia are predominantly traditional. The prevailing sheep production systems have evolved in relation to the total availability of land, the type of crop production practiced and the frequency or intensity of cropping, and the area of uncultivated waste land [1]. Despite the relatively huge livestock population with high potential for meat and milk production, a number of factors hindered the development of livestock sector in Ethiopia. Among the factors affecting sheep productivity like in other livestock species is feed shortage both in quality and quantity. In Ethiopia, sheep are kept mostly on natural pastures, crop residues and stubble grazing in which the quality and quantity are subjected to great seasonal variation [2,3]. Natural pasture covers about 61.92% of the total feed of livestock in the country, which is augmented by crop residues, hay and agro-industrial by products that covers 27.01, 6.55 and 0.78% of the total livestock feed, respectively [3]. However, most of these tropical feed resources particularly crop residues and hay are mostly deficient in protein content. Thus, maximization of livestock productivity in the tropical regions largely depends on the efficiency of utilization of locally available protein sources [4]. One option for improving performance of animals fed low quality diets is supplementation with food processing agro-industrial by-products. Using agro-industrial by-products in ruminant nutrition is one of the important strategies to improve feed supply especially in developing countries [5]. Tomato pomaces increasingly have been used as valuable feedstuff in ruminants and poultry nutrition in developing countries [6,7]. Tomato Pomace is the mixture of tomato peels, crushed seeds and small amounts of pulp that remains after the processing of tomato for juice, paste and ketchup [8]. The total area of tomato cultivation in Ethiopia is 833 hectare by the year 1993 and later on the cultivation spread towards other parts of the country. Since 1994 up to present, tomato acreage increased to 5338 hectare with a total production of 55,635 Metric ton [9]. In Ethiopia there are two tomato processing factories that are Melgi-Wondo and Upper Awash Agro industry. The objectives of this study was to evaluate the effect of supplementation of dried tomato pomace, concentrate mix and their mixture on intake, apparent digestibility, and live weight of Hararghe highland sheep fed a basal diet of Natural pasture hay. Materials and Methods Description of the study area The experiment was conducted at Haramaya University which is located 515 km East of Addis Ababa. The site is located at an altitude Advances in Dairy Research Gebeyew, et al., J Adv Dairy Res, 2015, 3:1 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2329-888X.1000130 Research Article Open Access J Adv Dairy Res, ISSN:2329-888X ADR, an open access journal, Volume 3 • Issue 1 • 1000130