Assessment of Animal Feeding Practices by Livestock Farmers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Background: Saudi Arabia is one of the Arab countries with the greatest interest in livestock breeding projects to meet its demand for animal products. Feeding costs account for up to 70% of total costs. The aim of this study is to evaluate the feeding practices of livestock farmers and producers and to identify the differences in production efficiency depending on the feeding systems used. Methods: A total of 108,901 livestock farmers were randomly selected from the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture directory. Of these, 442 respondents answered a questionnaire on general information (age, gender, educational background, income, occupation, location of livestock distribution and purpose of animals), feeding regimes followed, the use of concentrates diet with their animals and welfare concern. Result: About 58.9% of the samples respondents were male and the ages of them were under 37 years (48.9% of the samples) and educational background was secondary school (34.4%), with less than 12 years of experience (41%), they were the majority of the study members. The main occupation for most of the studied samples (83.0%) was livestock farming with monthly income less than 5000 SR (75.2%). Most farmers owned sheep (82.2%) and 16.1% were located in the Riyadh region and 59.5% in the Badia system. The main purpose of rearing was for commercial use (38%). In terms of feeding systems, most farms used only green fodder (34.6%) or only barley (87.1%) or green fodder and barley (32.4%). 86.9% did not prefer to use concentrate diet, but 34.3% were willing to use a concentrate diet. The most common health problems associated with the use of concentrated diets (37.1%) were changes in meat color. All of these results represent the majority of study participants. The results strongly suggest that there is significant potential to improve production efficiency by introducing more balanced and optimized feeding strategies. This could include the use of well-formulated concentrates, improved feed quality and variety and the use of more efficient feeding techniques.