Imad Alhorani ^(1)*

General Commission for Scientific Agricultural Research, Tartous, Syria

(*Corresponding author: Imad Alhorani , Email: imad_horani2000@yahoo.com (0940682103)).

   Received: 07/04/2020                          Accepted: 09/06/2020

Abstract

         Water hyacinth is a floating aquatic colonial plant blocking the waterways and causes significant economic, natural, health and environmental damages. It has recently spread in Syria and the institutions and ministries are working to control it. It was noticed that its composition indicates the possibility of using it in animal nutrition and hence the aim of this research was to use this plant in feeding Awassi sheep, The research was carried out in the plain of Akkar in Tartous 2014 on two groups of sheep, the control and an experimental group of each 10 convergent sheep age and weight at the age of 6 months and an average weight of 32.05 ± 0.29 and 32.21 ± 0.30, respectively The two groups were fed on the same concentrated diet consisting of (69.5% barley, 9.5% unpeeled cotton meal, 19.5% bran, 1.5 salts and vitamin) with 14% crude protein, while 50% of the hay forage of the control group was replaced by water hyacinth hay. The weights of the control group and the experimental group were 44.25 ± 0.31 and 45.30 ± 0.37 kg, respectively. The results showed that the experimental group exceeded the control group in the average total gain of weight 13.09 ± 0.08 kg and 12.20 ± 0.06 kg, and the daily growth rate 175 ± 1.1 g and 163 ± 0.8 g, respectively, with significant differences at the level 0.05, which confirms the possibility of using the Water Hyacinth plant in feeding sheep

Keywords: Water Hyacinth, Awassi Sheep, Hay, Growth charateristics.

Full paper in Arabic: PDF