CHEMICAL COMPOSITION AND INVITRO DEGRADABILITY OF SELECTED PLANTS CONSUMED BY SMALL RUMINANT

Abstract

A study was conducted to evaluate the chemical composition and in vitro degradability of Azadirachta indica, Sida acuta, Aspilia africana, Tithonia diversifolia and Urena lobota. The resulting products were collected, sun-dried and kept in a polythene bags for further investigation. Samples were investigated for proximate composition, in vitro gas production characteristics, estimated organic matter digestibility (OMD%), metabolizable energy (ME, MJ/kgDM) and short chain fatty acid (SCFA, mol). Results obtained showed that, there was significant difference in proximate composition with crude protein (CP) ranging from 14.33 in Azadirachta indica to 32.48% in Urena lobota. The content of the neutral detergent fibre (NDF) differed significantly (P<0.05) with values ranging from 58.92 in Azadirachta indica to 62.44% in Tithonia diversifolia. The estimated OMD and ME were significantly (P<0.05) highest in Urena lobota (44.03 % and 4.84 MJ/kgDM) respectively. The study concluded that, the selected plants evaluated had high crude protein contents which would make them good protein supplement to poor quality feeds especially during feed scarcity without adverse effect.