EFEITO DO USO DE GRÃOS SECOS DE DESTILARIA SOBRE OS ASPECTOS PRODUTIVOS DE OVINOS EM CONFINAMENTO

Abstract

Dietary supplementation plays a fundamental role in the nutrition of ruminants, directly influencing their productive performance and feed efficiency. Among the available nutritional alternatives, distillers' dried grains (DDG) stand out due to their high protein and energy content, economic competitiveness, ease of use and availability. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of DDG supplementation on the productive aspects of confined sheep. The experiment was conducted in a randomized design (DIC), with comparisons between means performed by the Tukey test at 5% significance (p < 0.05). Twenty-four young Santa Inês sheep were used, with an average age of six months and initial body weight (BW) of 27.08 ± 2.89 kg. The animals were distributed in pairs, totaling twelve pens interspersed between treatments. The treatments consisted of two diets: one with inclusion of DDG (treatment D) and another without DDG, containing soybean meal as the main protein source (treatment S). The confinement period was preceded by three adaptation stages, in which the concentrate was gradually increased over the bulky diet composed of corn silage. After this period, the animals began to receive the total diet, without bulky, according to the treatment. In the results, no significant differences (p > 0.05) were observed between the treatments for average daily gain (ADG), final live weight (FW), body condition score (BCS), loin eye area (LOA) and subcutaneous fat thickness (SFT). Regarding dry matter intake (DMI), a significant difference (p < 0.05) was observed both in intake per animal and in relation to body weight (BW), being greater in the treatment without DDG. Feed conversion (FCR) and feed efficiency (FE) were better (p < 0.05) in the group supplemented with DDG. It was concluded that the inclusion of DDG demonstrated superior biological efficiency, productive and economic potential when compared to the diet with soybean meal, promoting better performance of sheep in confinement.