Effect of Dietary Slow-Release Urea Supplementation on Some Productive and blood Traits of Lambs

Abstract

This study was conducted at the sheep farm of the Department of Animal Production, College of Agriculture, Tikrit University, during the period from 5/10/2025 to 5/1/2025. The study aimed to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation with slow-release urea (SRU) on the productive performance of Awassi lambs. Fifteen Awassi lambs aged 3–4 months with an initial body weight of 24 ± 26 kg were randomly assigned to three dietary treatments. The first treatment served as the control group (without SRU supplementation), while the second and third treatments received diets containing 3% and 5% slow-release urea, respectively. The experiment lasted 12 weeks and was conducted using a Completely Randomized Design (CRD).   The results indicated that supplementation with slow release urea had no significant effect on body weight gain during the early weeks of the experiment. However, the control group exhibited significantly higher body weights during the final weeks (weeks eleven and twelve) and consumed greater amounts of feed. Regarding low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), the second and third treatments showed significantly higher values than the control treatment, recording 64.40, 63.60, and 63.00 mg/dL, respectively.