Abdulrazak et al., 2006. Livest. Res. Rural Dev., 18 (9)

A study was conducted to compare the effect of feeding Pithecellobium dulce (Madras thorn), Leucaena leucocephala (leuceana) and Gliricidia sepium (gliricidia) on voluntary feed intake, live weight gains, digestibility and nitrogen balance of growing goats fed Panicum hay. Twelve Small East African goats aged between 8 and 9 months and average 9.65 kg were randomly assigned to four treatments namely Panicum hay fed ad libitum plus 100 g of maize bran (control), control supplemented with 18.6, 22.5 and 19.9 g DM/kgW0.75 isonitrogenous levels of Leucaena, Gliricidia or Madras thorn respectively. Crude protein concentrations in DM were 3.5, 21%, 23% and 25% for hay, Gliricidia, Madras thorn and Leucaena respectively. Total daily dry matter intake was 229 g to 365 g, 387 g and 398 g/day for the control, Madras thorn, Gliricidia and Leucaena respectively. Animals supplemented with the legumes retained (P<0.05) more nitrogen than the control (Madras thorn 3.7, Gliricidia 3.6, Leucaena 3.5 vs. 0.6 g/day). Legume supplementation increased (P<0.05) daily gains form 2 g/day in the control treatment to 19, 22 and 25 g/day for Gliricidia, Madras thorn and Leucaena respectively. Supplementing Panicum hay with madras thorn gave similar growth performance to Gliricidia and Leucaena.