An Evaluation of Various Protein Concentrates for Growing Finishing Lambs

A digestibility study and three growth trials were conducted to evaluate cottonseed meal, soybean meal, hydrolyzed feather meal, blood meal, guar meal and urea as protein concentrates in lamb fattening rations. Apparent protein digestibility coefficients for the various feedstuffs in percent were: cottonseed meal, 73.7; soybean meal, 80.3; guar meal, 86.1; blood meal, 74.7; feather meal, 75.4; and urea, 100. Cottonseed meal and soybean meal promoted similar lamb gains, but gains were consistently more efficient when soybean meal was fed. Feather meal and blood meal were adequately digested and promoted respectable gains. However, gains by lambs on blood and feather meals were consistently but insignificantly lower than those by lambs fed the oil meal rations. Gains by lambs fed the urea rations did not differ significantly from cottonseed or soybean meal rations but tended to be intermediate between those from the oil meals and the animal by-product rations. Guar meal rations supported only poor performance, especially early in the feeding period. Lambs fed guar meal tended to overcome initial, poor performance and make compensatory gains toward the end of the feeding period.