Effect of different amounts of dried tomato forages on performance and feed intake in fattening lambs

Considering high tomato cultivation in Iran, the aim of this study was to investigate the replacement of different levels of tomato forage with alfalfa on the performance of Dalagh lambs. Therefore, it was carried out by using 16 lambs with a mean initial weight of 26.5 ± 4.2 with 4 treatments in completely randomized design. Tomato forage in three levels of 7, 14 and 21 percent replaced with alfalfa that with of control group formed experimental treatments. Daily feed was provided to lambs twice at, 8 and 16 hours and the feed residues were weighed in the end period. The lamb weight was measured every 14 days to measure growth. At the end of the course, stool and blood were performed to measure apparent digestion and blood metabolites. Lambs performance was affected by treatments (P <0.05). Treatment 4 had the lowest daily gain at 187 gr and it has highest feed conversion ratio but no was significant difference between treatments 2, 3 with control. The use of tomato plants instead of alfalfa (more than 20%) resulted in an increase of 12 mg / dl of blood urea and 6 mg of cholesterol. There was no significant difference between experimental treatments in digestibility. Replacing tomato forage in a level of 14% with alfalfa in the final performance of lamb is economically beneficial, and trough this, by reducing the cost of breeding and reducing biological problems can be a beneficial nutritional resource.