Milk yield and lamb growth of syrian-awassi sheep graze on cereal and cereal-legume mixture forages

The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of Syrian Awassi sheep grazing in spring on improved forages (sole barley, barley-grasspea, barley-vetch, sole oat, oat-grasspea and oat-vetch). 30 Syrian Awassi lambs were used to evaluate the lamb growth, and 18 lactating ewes in the milk yield experiment. The experiment of lamb growth was conducted in participation with a farmer in Al-Barkum village (adjacent to ICARDA), while the experiment of milk yield was done in ICARDA station.The forages dry matter yield (DRY) were significantly differed at (P < 0.05) among the treatments. The average dry matter yield was 3600 kg/ha . The average daily live-weight gain (ADG) of the lambs was 132 g/head/day. The total average of milk yield (MY) was 1110 g/head/day. Milk composition (MC) such as (Protein, Fat and Total solids) was significantly affected by treatments.It was concluded that cereal-legume mixture forages do improves forage quantity and quality and could be used to cope the feeding gap in spring, and improve marginal income of poor farmers and livestock keepers.Keywords: Dry Matter Yield (DMY), Average Daily Live-wieght Gain (ADG), Milk Yield (MY) and Milk Composition (MC).