|
Matching Livestock Systems with Available Resources |
MEKARN Regional Conference 2007 |
Chemical composition, digestibility, N retention and feed intake characteristics of some tropical foliage species used for local goats were studied.Twelve local male goats with an initial body weight (BW) of 14.6 kg and around 3.5 months of age, were randomly allocated to six treatments in a repeated randomized complete block design with 3 periods. The treatments were foliages from Erythrina (Erythrina variegata), Fig (Ficus racemosa), Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus), Jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill), Kapok (Ceiba pentandra) and Mango (Mangifera indica), which were offered ad libitum at the level of 130 % of the average daily feed intake.
The Erythrina foliage had a low content of DM and condensed tannins (CT) and a high concentration of crude protein (CP) in leaves plus petioles, 193 g/kg DM, and stem, while the Mango foliage had a low CP, 69 g/kg DM, and high DM content. The other foliages were intermediate between Erythrina and Mango. High content of CT was found in the leaves plus petioles of Jackfruit foliage and in the stem of Fig and Mango foliage. There was a significant difference in feed intake, nutrient intake, apparent digestibility and N retention between treatments (P<0.05), with Erythrina, Jackfruit and Kapok foliage being significantly higher in those parameters than Fig, Jujube and Mango foliage.
In a subsequent experiment, the Fig, Jujube and Mango foliages were offered ad libitum together with fresh water spinach at 0.5% of LW (DM basis). DM and CP intake, apparent digestibility and N retention were all markedly increased compared to feeding these foliages as sole feeds in the previous experiment.
In a third experiment, the feed intake and selective behaviour of eight local male goats (15.7 kg and 7 months of age) were studied by following each goat during 9 hours per day with six foliages. Three types of foliage species: Erythrina, Jackfruit and Kapok foliage, were selected more often and more time was spent eating these foliages, resulting in higher total feed intake compared to Fig, Jujube and Mango foliage, but the Jujube foliage was preferred by some of the goats. The goats were very individual in their selective and intake behaviour.