Effect of dietary L-carnitine supplementation on growth performance and morphometric traits in Malabari bucks

Eighteen matured Malabari bucks (1-3 years old) were randomly assigned to three treatment groups viz T1, T2 and T3 with six bucks each, following completely randomised design. All the goats were offered Hybrid Napier (Co-3) grass ad libitum along with a basal diet (18% CP and 70% TDN) for experimental period of 90 days and ration was formulated as per ICAR (2013). T1 group animals maintained as control fed basal diet and T2 and T3 groups were supplemented with 200 mg and 300 mg of L-carnitine/kg of basal diet per day, respectively. The recorded initial body weight (kg) of goats were similar (P=0.90) between treatments T1 (37.80), T2 (35.83) and T3 (35.97). The final body weight (kg) of goats were 39.59 (T1), 39.28 (T2), and 38.19 (T3), and did not differ significantly (P=0.92). There was numerically increased body weight gain in T2 (3.45 kg) and T3 (2.22 kg) compared to control group (1.79 kg). Morphometric traits such as body height, length, chest girth, body condition score, cannon bone length and cannon bone circumference were also not differed significant (p<0.05) in this experiment.