INVITRO FERMENTATION CHARACTERISTIC OF WEST AFRICAN DWARF GOAT FED WITH BOILED

ABSTRACT

Animal production has evolved beyond conventional and traditional means of just feeding and breeding livestock with basic feed and materials found in the market. Farmers require means to reduce cost while increasing profit significantly and feeding takes majority of the cost of production in livestock farming. There is also a need for preservation of feed materials towards off season periods and various means including drying, chopping, fermentation and ensiling could be used to preserve feed materials, hence this study was carried out to examine the in vitro digestibility of boiled and green maize husk ensiled with cassava peels and leaves with or without urea fed to west African dwarf goats. The experiment was carried out in the small ruminant research housing unit of the University of Benin, Edo State of which data were collected. Data collected at different period were analysed using GLM procedure of SAS (2014) and separation of means was done using the Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) in the same SAS (2014) software. The result of the study shows that the crude protein obtained in all the diets exceeded 8%, the minimum limit needed by rumen microbes for optimum activity. This suggests that the quality of the diets met the requirements for effective rumen function. The crude fibre increased with increasing levels of cassava in the diets and this may be attributed to the high cell wall constituents usually present in plant materials. Control xi with the value of (49.33) had the highest gas produced after 24 hours this can be attributed to concentrate digestibility being faster than forage digestibility, which explains the higher total gas production observed in high proportion of concentrate. Animal fed T2 (50% Green maize husk, 30% cassava leaves, 20% cassava peels) and T3 (50% Boiled maize husk, 30% cassava leaves, 20% cassava peels) diet has better digestibility and performed significantly better in utilization of the feed. Hence can be fed along side control without adverse effect.