Essay On Animal Agriculture In Nigeria

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Nigeria is basically an agrarian society with the largest percentage of the populace living in the rural areas. A great proportion of the farming population especially in the northern part of the country depends on animal agriculture with ruminant production very predominant. Ruminants that comprises of sheep, goats and cattle, are largely reared by farm families in the country’s agricultural system. Nigeria has population of 34.5million goats, 22.1million sheep and 13.9million cattle (Lawal-Adebowale, 2012). They are mostly concentrated in the northern part of the country. Ruminants play significant roles in the social and economic wellbeing of the rural dwellers that are involved in their rearing. However, there is a huge gap between supply…show more content…
However, there are non-conventional feed resources that are relatively not popular and farmers find difficult to feed to their animals because of the following constraints. Examples of these are neem seed cake/meal, poultry litter waste etc. Some of the constraints militating against the use of NCFR include the following: 1. The nutritive content of some NCFR is low. Amata (2014) reported that non-conventional feed sources are presently not been utilized because of their low nutritive value, seasonal availability, high moisture content (e.g. citrus pulp, tomato pulp, olive cake, etc., 2. High cost of handling and transportation from the production site to the farm, lack of awareness by farmers about the nutritive content, Presence of anti-nutritional factors (phenolic compounds mainly tannins, saponins, etc.) and lack of technical knowledge on the removal, high cost of removal of the anti-nutritional factors etc. Amata (2014) reported that the following as part of the factors militating against the use of non-conventional feed in ruminant diets.

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