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

Nine Maradi x West African Dwarf cross bred goats of mixed sexes between 8-10 months old and with an average body weight of 10 kg were used to evaluate mixtures of dried cassava leaf meal and maize offal as dietary supplements to rice straw ad libitum. The animals were randomly allotted to three dietary groups of three animals each and each animal put in a metabolic cage. The diets were: diet CL30 (70% maize offal: 30% dried cassava leaf meal, diet CLM50 (50% maize offal:50% dried cassava leaf meal) and diet CLM70 (30% maize offal:70% dried cassava leaf meal). Daily rice straw intake was significantly lower for goats on diet CLM30 than for goats on diets CLM50 and CLM70. There were no statistical differences in average daily gains and feed conversion ratio (p>0.05). Goats on diet CLM50 had a daily weight gain of 20.8g which is relatively higher than 13.1g and 18.6g for dietary groups CLM30 and CLM70, respectively. Goats on diet CLM30 had a significantly higher (p<0.05) apparent dry matter digestibility of 64.49% than those on diets CLM50 (57.27%) and CLM70 (54.01%). Digestibility of dry matter, crude protein, crude fibre and nitrogen free extract decreased as dietary inclusion of dried cassava leaf meal increased. The optimum level of inclusion of CLM in a basal diet of rice straw and maize offal appears to be of the order of 20% of the DM intake, which is equivalent to about 1 g crude protein (from the CLM) per 1 kg live weight.