Nguyen Thi Duyen et al., 1996. Livest. Res. Rural Dev., 8 (3) article #26

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the use of leaves from the Jack fruit tree (Artocarpus heterophyllus), banana plants (Musa spp), Acacia mangium and Trichantera gigantea trees as supplements to a basal diet of rice straw and sugarcane tops, feed resources which are widely available in North Vietnam especially in the winter season. The leaves were fed to lactating goats which were allocated to the treatments from the 4th to the 12th week of lactation. From kidding until the end of the 4th week the goats were fed a standard diet of Guinea grass (Panicum maximum) supplemented with 500 g/head/day of a 15% protein concentrate. During the first two weeks the kids were always with the mother. At the start of the 3rd week the kids were separated and the does were milked once daily (07.00hr); the kids were allowed to suck for 30 minutes after milking in the morning and again in the afternoon (16.00hr) without prior milking of the dam. During the 4th week the yield was measured by weighing the milk produced at milking and by estimating the milk consumed by the kids by weighing them before and after suckling. The yield in the 4th week was used as covariate to adjust the yield during the experiment.  The highest milk yields were obtained from goats fed leaves from Jack fruit (765 ml/day) and Acacia mangium (736 ml/day) which did not differ significantly from each other. Both were superior to bananas (676 ml/day) while the Trichantera gigantea was the worst (571 ml/day). The does gained weight on the Jack fruit treatment (1.85 kg from 7 to 12 weeks) but lost weight (-1.24 to -2.2 kg) on the other treatments. The growth rates of the kids were lowest on Acacia mangium (14g/day) and ranged from 48 to 60 g/day on the other treatments.  It is concluded that a diet of sugar cane tops, molasses-urea block and leaves from the Jack fruit tree, with small amounts of rice bran (200 g/day) can be recommended as a basal diet for lactating goats and growing kids, especially during the dry winter season when grasses are in short supply.