Effect of using different levels of mushroom cultivation spent in awassi lambs rations on some productive traits

This study was conducted to investigate the ability of using mushroom cultivation spent (MCS) in different levels instead of barley in Awassi lambs ration and their effects on productivity characteristics. Multi reproductive cycle of Pleurotus ostreatus mushroom spent quantities were collected from Agriculture College /Tikrit's university mushroom farm before dried and mixed with rations. Thirty five locally Awassi male lambs aged 5.5/6.5 months with initial weight of 30±0.39 kg were allocated for five treatments with seven lambs each treatment and distributed to individual cages, treatments was as follow: treatment one T1 (control treatment), treatment two T2 (5% of MCS), treatment three T3 (10% of MCS), treatment four T4 (15% of MCS) and treatment five T5 (20% of MCS). Percentage use of barley was minimized for each treatment rations in order to maintain a fixed percentage of protein (14%). Wheat straw was provided ad libitum as a roughage diet for each treatment lambs for the whole study period while concentrate diet was provided for each treatment lambs by 3% of live body weight for the whole study period also which was seventy days. During and after finishing the study, several measurements were taken. The results show significant reduction (p≤0.05) in each final weight, daily and weekly average weight gain, feed conversion ratio, hot carcass weight and dressing percentage for treatments T4 and T5 while no effect was record for MCS treatments on each average feed consumption, external and internal offal's percentage weight. As a result we can conclude that it is able to use mushroom cultivating spent (MCS) instead of barley in Awassi lambs ration within 15% without any negative effects.