Intake and digestibility of lamb fed diets containing banana crop residues

Abstract

The objective of this work was to evaluate the effects of the inclusion of banana leaf or pseudostem hay in complete diets on the intake, nutrient digestibility, and ruminal short-chain fatty acid production by lambs. A total of 30 Santa Inês x Dorper lambs were allocated to five treatments: 400 g kg-1 Cynodon spp. hay; 200 g kg-1 banana leaf hay + 200 g kg-1 Cynodon spp. hay; 400 g kg-1 banana leaf hay; and 200 g kg-1 banana pseudostem hay + 200 g kg-1 Cynodon spp. hay and 400 g kg-1 banana pseudostem hay. The inclusion of banana crop residues had no effect on dry matter intake, organic matter, crude protein, neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber, non-fiber carbohydrates, and total carbohydrates, which presented averages of 1,086.8, 1,000.1, 182.7, 374.3, 194.7, 390.2, and 771.6 g per day, respectively. There was a reduction in NDF digestibility with the inclusion of 400 g kg-1 leaf hay, but no differences were observed in the other treatments. The addition of both banana leaf and pseudostem hay can replace Cynodon spp. hay without affecting intake, nutrient digestibility, and ruminal concentration of short-chain fatty acids.

Nutritional value of pre-dried banana tree pseudostem ammoniated with protected urea

“…Wang et al (2016) evaluated the potential degradability of banana tree pseudostems in natura and verified values of approximately 88% in the DM. Carmo et al (2018) highlighted the potential degradation of banana tree pseudostems in diets for lambs and observed values of approximately 79.80%. These values suggest the potential for rumen degradation of pseudostems carbohydrates under different processing forms for ruminant nutrition.…”

“…The banana tree pseudostems, ammoniated with 2% urea in natural matter, have the potential for use in ruminant nutrition, particularly for maintaining animals or composing diets for animals in production. Carmo et al (2018) evaluated the inclusion of 40% pseudostem hay in the diet for confined lambs and did not observe changes in nutrient intake. However, pseudostem hay increased the concentration of propionic and butyric acid in the rumen.…”

“…The use of agroindustrial residues for roughage supplementation in ruminants is a common practice, especially for banana crop wastes (Musa spp.) (Carmo et al, 2018;Gerassev et al, 2013;Monção et al, 2016;Wang, Muhammad, Liua, Huang and Cao et al, 2016).…”

Feeding F1 Holstein x Zebu cows with different roughages and pseudostem hay of banana trees does not influence milk yield and chemical composition of milk and cheese

“…The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that in 2017, 114 million tons of fruit were produced worldwide, generating large amounts of pseudostem. According to Carmo et al (2018), the use of pseudostem hay of banana trees is an alternative for animal feed because it does not alter the dry matter intake in small ruminants nor the production of rumen short chain fatty acids and improves dry matter digestibility. However, there are no studies in the literature using pseudostem hay of banana trees in the F1 Holstein x Zebu cow diet, which account for 80% of the volume of milk produced in Brazil.…”