The Potential of Albizia lebbeck as a Supplementary Feed for Goats in Tanzania

Abstract

Forty growing goats (20 males and 20 females) were used in a 90-day growth and intake study to evaluate the potential of Albizia lebbeck (ABC) based concentrate as compared with Gliricidia sepium (GBC), Leucaena leucocephala (LBC), and Moringa oleifera (MBC) based concentrates with cotton seed cake (CSC) as a control. The animals were fed a basal diet of maize stover and supplemented daily with 30 g/kg W 0.75 of ABC, GBC, LBC, MBC, and CSC. They were compounded so as to formulate iso-protein diets. Treatment effects were significant (p < 0.05) for growth rates in that with the exception of GBC, goats on CSC exhibited significantly higher gains compared to counterparts in other treatments. The total DM intake was between 50.6 and 52.6 g/kg W 0.75 /day and there were no significant (p > 0.05) differences among treatments. There were significant differences (p < 0.05) among treatments for maize stover intake. CSC based treatment showed the highest intake with insignificant (p > 0.05) differences amongst the leaf meal based concentrates. It can be concluded that Albizia lebbeck had similar potential to the other leaf meal based supplements studied but had lower potential compared to a cotton seed cake based supplement, as protein sources for growing goats fed a poor quality basal diet.

Mineral balance, nutrient intake and digestibility of West African dwarf (Wad) goats fed urea-mixed milled maize stover diets

“…The fiber fraction intakes of the four diets showed significant differences (P<0.05) among treatments with D1 having the highest intake of fiber fraction. ADF and ADL intakes ranged from 99.00-135.40and 33.95-47.30gd -1 respectively, these values were comparable to earlier reports for growing goats (Ndemanisho et al, 2007), but lower than values for sheep fed urea-molasses treated MS diets (Abera et al, 2018).…”

Feeding Acacia etbaica and Dichrostachys cinerea fruits to smallholder goats in northern Ethiopia improves their performance during the dry season

“…In the case of A. etbaica fruits, the highest body weight gain was achieved at the intermediate (1.0%) level of supplementation. Higher body weigh gains were measured in the treatment groups that comprised D. cinerea fruits, the highest being the treatment that included the highest level of D. cinerea fruits, which is comparable to weight gains achieved under Vicia sativa (Berhane and Eik, 2006), Albizia lebbeck (Ndemanisho et al, 2006) and Faidherbia albida (Ibeauchi and Adamu, 1990;Wiegand et al, 1996) supplementation. The daily body weight gains achieved in this study, however, were less than those reported for goats fed different levels of fruit and leaf supplements (Sawe et al, 1998) and such differences might be caused by the fact that these authors conducted their experiment during the time when there was flush growth of the vegetation that provided additional nutrients for the goats.…”

Research on Moringa (Moringa oleifera Lam.) in Africa

“…The latter mainly referred to the use of moringa as fodder for livestock or feed in aquaculture/fish farming. Indeed, moringa has been used as feed or fodder for many livestock species across Africa [ 149 , 165 , 218 , 250 , 336 , 340 , 359 , 369 , 382 , 383 , 397 ], e.g., for sheep in Ghana [ 218 ]; for pigs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo [ 149 ]; for cattle in Mozambique [ 250 ]; for goats in South Africa [ 340 ] and Tanzania [ 382 , 383 ]; and for chicken/poultry in South Africa [ 336 , 359 ], Egypt [ 165 ], and Zimbabwe [ 397 ]. Similarly, different parts of moringa, especially the leaves, have been used as feed in aquaculture and fish farming [ 113 , 179 , 279 , 354 , 380 , 403 ], e.g., for Tilapia in Tanzania [ 380 ], Benin [ 113 ], Egypt [ 179 ], Nigeria [ 279 ], and South Africa [ 354 ].…”