Abstract

The study was conducted at Yilmana Denssa district where there is huge population of sheep and traditional sheep fattening is practiced. Six women famers were participating for the trail. Each woman was supposed to purchase three yearling male rams. A total of 18 yearling Washera sheep were used for this research. Experimented sheep were feeding 400 g concentrate /head/day, which is composed of 24.75% maize, 74.25% Nouge cake and 1% salt before and after grazing for three month along with 5 h of grazing time per day. The economic benefit was estimated using partial budget analysis while the collected data was analyzed using SPSS software virsion16. Grazing supplemented with 400 g concentrate increases the average weight of the sheep from 26.88 kg to 33.56 kg. The variation of body weight gain before and after the experiment was statistically significant (p<0.01). The average daily weight gain was 80.52 g (it ranges from 21.69 to 125.30 g). Partial budget analysis indicated that fattening of sheep using 400 g nouge cake and maize mixed supplementation was economical with gross profit of 1741.81ETB. The economic analysis also showed that the average gross profit from fattening of one sheep is 96.74 ETB. Farmers and technical experts also appreciate this sheep fattening technology. So it is recommended that the extension wing should scale up this fattening technology to the potential areas targeting religious festivals as their main market.

Key words: Sheep fattening, body weight gain, initial and final body weight.