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Matching Livestock Systems with Available Resources |
MEKARN Regional Conference 2007 |
Three crossbred castrate male pigs, weighing on average 24 kg were allotted at random to three diets to study the effect of fresh sweet potato vine and fresh mulberry leaves, given separately or mixed together on intake, digestibility and N retention of growing pigs with a basal diet of broken rice.
The actual intakes of the foliages accounted for 21 to 28% of the total DM intake, .and about 55% of the crude protein intake. There was a strong indication (P=0.066) that intakes of foliage DM were higher when the sweet potato vines were all or part of the foliage supplement. Total intakes of DM and crude protein did not differ among the treatments. Coefficients of apparent digestibility were high for DM and organic matter with no differences among the treatments. The apparent digestibility coefficients of the DM, OM and crude protein were higher for the mulberry diet compared with the diets in which the protein supplement contained sweet potato vines. N retention was high on all diets, equivalent to a live weight gain of the order of 250-300 g/day, with a suggestion of a higher value for the diet with mulberry leaves
It is concluded that the protein in the fresh foliage of mulberry leaves is well utilized by growing pigs fed a basal diet of broken rice. There were no advantages from giving a mixture of sweet potato vines and mulberry leaves compared with either foliage given alone.