Fresh or dried Prosopis cineraria foliage is an important feed resource for small ruminants and camelids in the drier areas of India and of the Arabic Peninsula. While the leaves are highly palatable and nutritious, they tend to have negative effects of the performance of sheep and goats when given as sole feed, due to their high tannin content. However, when they may be fed to adult sheep as supplements after grazing on a rangeland (Bhatta et al., 2005b) or to goats along with polyethylene glycol (Bhatta et al., 2004). In comparative studies, goats seem more tolerant of Prosopis cineraria tannins: their daily weight gain was higher with the higher Prosopis cineraria level in the diet. Goats could be better adapted to using Prosopis cineraria in their diet than sheep, because their performance were higher than those of sheep (Bhatta et al., 2007; Bohra, 1980).
Intake and digestibility
When Prosopis cineraria leaves were offered as sole feed to adult sheep (Marwari breed 36.6 kg) or goats (Barmer breed 45.7 kg), the dry matter intake (DMI) was 1.88 kg/100 kg BW in sheep and 2.80 kg/100 kg BW in goats (Bohra, 1980). These differences could be explained by the high tannin content of the leaves to which sheep are more sensitive than goats. The dry matter digestibility (DMd) was relatively low and did not differ between animals (41.4 and 48.8 % respectively) whereas protein digestibility was higher for goats than for sheep (38.9 vs 22 %). The digestible and metabolizable energies were also higher in goats than in sheep (Bohra, 1980).
When offered as sole feed to adult Bikaneri camels (369 kg) and compared to a legume straw (Phaseolus aconitifolius), DMI is much lower with Prosopis cineraria (1.56 kg/100 kg BW) than with Phaseolus aconitifolius (2.15 kg/100 kg BW) as well as OM (55.7 vs 69.3 %) and CP (37.9 vs 44.4 %) digestibility. Again, these results are probably due to the high level of condensed tannins in Prosopis (61.8 g/kg DM) compared to Phaseolus (Nagpal et al., 2017).
Due to its high content of condensed tannins, Prosopis cineraria foliage could reduce methane production in the rumen when fed in high proportion with cereal grain (Meena et al., 2017). Leaves included at 50 or 75 % into a diet reduced ciliate protozoa in kids and lambs and increased nitrogen synthesis (Vaithiyanathan et al., 2007). This reduction was higher in kids than in lambs (Vaithiyanathan et al., 2007). Condensed tannins of prosopis leaves inhibit in vitro cellulase activity by 66 to 79 % (Kumar, 1992). This negative effect can be partly eliminated by adding 0.5 % PEG 4000 (Kumar, 1992).
Sheep and goats
All results presented in the table below with small ruminant studies in India. When Prosopis cineraria leaves were offered as sole forage or at high level to young ruminants (kids or lambs), DMI, crude protein digestibility and animal growth were often reduced. However, these negative effects could be overcome by adding small amounts of PEG 4000 or 6000 (polyethylene glycol) which is known to alleviate the negative effects of tannins. Using PEG, costly nitrogen sources could be replaced with Prosopis cineraria leaves without altering animal performance.
In grazing adult rams, supplementation with 200 g DM / d of freshly cut leaves of Prosopis cineraria, Acacia nilotica or Albizia lebbek resulted in higher DM digestibility and the animals maintained their weight unlike the non-supplemented ones. Although Albizia appeared to be nutritionally better compared to Prosopis and Acacia, supplementation of Prosopis had an edge over the other two, because of the better fermentation pattern resulting in minimum loss of N (Bhatta et al., 2005b).
The utilization of Prosopis cineraria pods for feeding livestock in mentioned in the literature (Rani et al., 2013) but information is scarce on the value of the pods for ruminants. One study in Oman found that feeding Prosopis cineraria pods to Omani sheep did not cause overt health problems. The pods could be included at up to 15% in the diet without causing significant effects on body weight gain, feed conversion or carcase characteristics. Sheep fed 30% pods still gained weight but those fed 45% pods lost weight. Negative effects on growth appeared to occur after 6 weeks of feeding Prosopis cineraria pods (Mahgoub et al., 2004).
Country |
Animal |
Breed/physiological stage |
Experiment |
Level of prosopis in the diet |
Main results |
Reference |
India |
Goat |
Adult Kutchi goats, 50 days in milk producing 470g/d milk |
Grazing rangeland alone or supplemented with three tree leaves species including prosopis |
|
Higher DMI (1.59 vs 1.36 kg DM/d) and milk yield (574 vs 363 g/day) with tree leaves supplementation |
Bhatta et al., 2002a |
India |
Goat |
Adult Kutchi goats, 50 days in milk producing 470g/d milk |
Grazing rangeland alone or supplemented with three tree leaves species including prosopis |
|
Higher DMI (1.59 vs 1.36 kg DM/d) and milk yield (574 vs 363 g/day) with tree leaves supplementation |
Bhatta et al., 2002a |
India |
Goat |
Young growing Marwari kids (11 kg) |
3 levels of prosopis included into total mixed diet |
25, 50 or 75% |
Total DMI tended to increase (815-832 g/d) with 50 or 75% compared to 25% (632 g/d); DMd and CPd decreased with increasing Pc level; DWG tended to be higher (126 vs 84-86 g/d) with 50% level |
Bhatta et al., 2007
|
India |
Goat |
Adult Barbari male (18.5 kg) |
Prosopis offered as protein supplement to rice straw based diet |
about 140 g DM/d |
Rice straw intake was about 250 g DM/d and animals lose about 10 g/d |
Dutta et al., 1999 |
India |
Goat |
Young growing Kutchi kids (11 kg, 90 d) |
Kids fed on natural rangeland plus prosopis leaves with or without 5 g/d of PEG 6000 |
ad libitum as fresh |
Including 5 g/kg DM of PEG-6000 increased the DMI of prosopis leaves (0.69 to 0.87 kg/d), CPd (43.6 to 50.4 %) and tends to increase DWG (52.4 to 63.2 g/d) |
Bhatta et al., 2002b |
India |
Goat |
Young growing Kutchi kids (11 kg, 90 d) |
Kids fed with prosopis leaves ad libitum and supplemented with concentrate including high level of protein (HP, 212 g/kg DM) or low level (LP, 126 - 139) + (LP PEG) or -50 g/kg DM PEG 6000 |
ad libitum as fresh |
CP level did not change DMI (0.89 vs 0.88 kg/d) but PEG increased DMI from 0.88 to 1.04 kg/d. PEG supplement increased CPd and DWG of LP from 44.4% to 53% and 73 to 85 g/d, as high as HP (54.1% and 85 g/d) |
Bhatta et al., 2004 |
India |
Goat |
Young growing Sirohi kids (16 kg, 90 d) |
Total mixed diet (feed blocks) including Pc, with or without 2.5 % PEG 6000 and 16.5% groundnut cake |
50% in the total diet |
PEG-6000 increased total DMI (1.11 to 1.19 kg/d), tends to increase DMd (55.9 to 58.8%) and DWG (72.7 to 84.5 g/d). Feed block without groundnut cake but with PEG 6000 gave the same results (DMI, DMd and DWG) as feed block + groundnut cake. |
Bhatta et al., 2005a |
India |
Sheep |
Young growing Malpura lambs (11 kg)
|
3 levels of Prosopis included into total mixed diet
|
25, 50 or 75%
|
Total DMI tended to increase (839 to 930 g/d) up to 50% level then tended to decrease (758 g/d); DMd and CPd decreased with increasing Prosopis level; DWG decreased by 2 times (57 vs 110-117 g/d) with 75% prosopis compared to 25 or 50%
|
Bhatta et al., 2007
|
India |
Sheep |
Adult Malpura rams (39 kg)
|
Grazing supplemented with concentrate or tree leaves (Acacia nilotica, Albizia lebbek, Prosopis cineraria)
|
200 g DM/d
|
Supplemented groups had higher DM digestibility and maintained weight. The group supplemented with Prosopis had lower protein digestibility and a better fermentation pattern. |
Bhatta et al., 2005b
|
India |
Sheep |
Young Omani sheep male (116 d, 24 kg)
|
4 levels of Prosopis pods in total mixed ration
|
0, 15, 30 or 45%
|
Total DMI highly decreases with 30 and over all 45 % pods; at these two levels, sheep do not grow or lose weight (60 g/d) compared to 100 g with 0 or 15% Pc pods.
|
Mahgoub et al., 2004
|
Camels
Prosopis cineraria leaves are relished by camels. In Cholistan rangelands, leaves of Prosopis cineraria and Acacia nilotica were the most preferred browses for all classes of livestock including camels (Abdullah et al., 2017). In India, camel calves (14-18 month-old) browsing during 7-8 h per day were found to prefer Prosopis cineraria leaves to other foliages and they spent 19% of their time on Prosopis. In comparison to camels fed on guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba) hay and moth (Phaseolus aconitifolius) hay, camels browsing had better performance (Bhakat et al., 2009b). It was reported that increasing the level of prosopis leaves in order to replace moth hay in the diet of camels decreased the degradability of DM, OM and NDF after 24 h. The lower degradability could be attributed to the high tannins content of prosopis leaves (Abo-Donia et al., 2015).