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Matching Livestock Systems with Available Resources |
MEKARN Regional Conference 2007 |
Soybean foliage is the residue after harvesting the beans, subsequently sun-dried and stored for the dry season. Three feeds were compared as supplements in the traditional system of grazing from 6 am until 6 pm; CH, cassava foliage hay; SH, soybean foliage hay; and FG, fresh guinea grass. Each supplement of CH and SH was offered at levels of 200; 300; 400 and 500 g/day. The supplements were offered twice daily, in the morning before grazing and in the evening after return from grazing. The experiment used 30 goats (crosses of Jumnapary*Bachthao breed). The control was feeding with guinea grass ad libitum. The experiment was carried out for 120 days.
Growth rates increased linearly with level of supplement to a maximum at 400 g/day of supplement and were higher for CH (range from 80 to 105 g/day) than for SH (range of 88 to 95 g/day). Growth rate on the guinea grass control (78 g/day) was inferior to both CH and SH treatments.