NUTRITIONAL VALUE AND PREFRENCE OF SELECTED BROWSE PLANTS OF THE HUMID ZONE BY WEST AFRICAN DWARF GOATS

Abstract

About 500 g each of fresh leaves and apical growth of 11 browse species: Albizia zygia, Alchornea cordifolia, Dialum guineense, Gliricidia sepium, Leucaena leucocephala, Macaranga barterii, Newbouldea laevis, Palisota hirsuta, Sarcocephalus latifolus, Spondias mombin and Vernonia amygdalina were used for the study, The fodder species were placed in plastic feeding troughs, replicated three times and randomly placed in three locations around the perimeter of the paddock. Animals were exposed to the fodder for 4h/d 12d. Number of visits, number of bites per visit and time spent eating the browses were measured with stop watches. Dried samples of test species were ground through Imm screen and used for chemical analyses. The range in CP, tannin, NDF and ADF were 170.0g kg’ DM - 334.4g kg'DM, 0.05g¢kg' DM—8.1gkg'DM, 315.3gkg'DM — 664.0gkg'DM and 212.8gkg'DM - 442.0gkg" DMrespectively. Number of visits, number of bites, time spent per visit and coefficient of preference ranged from 0.0 -12.2, 0.0-113.9, 0.0-27.7sec and 0.0-0.48 respectively. From the results, goats preferred the browse species in the following order: L. leucocephala > A.cordifolia > S.mombin > S.latifolus > A.zygia > D. guineense > P. hirsuta > M. barterii > G.sepium, N. laevis and Kamygdalina.