The effect of replacing soybean meal with Fava bean seeds in daily ration of Lebanese Baladi goat kids and Awassi sheep lambs: 1- Body performance

The aim of the study was to investigate the partial and complete substitution of imported soybean meal (SBM) with Fava bean seeds (FBS) in Awassi male lambs (S) and local Baladi goat kids (G) rations and the consequences on body performance. Fifteen growing lambs and 15 growing kids, with an initial bodyweight of 23.09 and 14.90 kg with 100 days of age, respectively, were fed cotton-seed meal (CSM), wheat bran and corn-based diet supplemented with protein legume sources, 75% FBS :25% SBM (S75 & G75), 0% FBS :100% SBM (S100 and G100-positive control) and 100% FBS :0% SBM (SC0 & GC0- negative control). Awassi lambs of all groups had comparable average feed intake (FI) accumulating between 43.9 and 49.4 kg/head and live body weight gain (LBWG) between 6.5 and 10.9 kg/head. Whereas local Baladi goat kids attained a cumulative LBWG levels of 5.7 and 3.96 kg/head and cumulative FI of 28.2 and 29.7 kg/head. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) for lambs attained the best results in group S50 (3.92) and the least in S100 (6.82) and for kids 7.14 in G100 and 5.25 in G75 groups. Feeding group S50 with 50% FBS and 50% SBM in based-ration gave more profit 17.2% than all other groups in comparison with SC0. On the other hand, G75 gave the highest profit by 19.15% in goat kids. Most notably, omitting soybean meal with or without additional protein legume as fava bean seeds replacements resulted in comparable high-body performance level.