Nouphone Manivanh et al., 2011. Livest. Res. Rural Dev., 23 (3)

Four crossbred castrated male pigs, weighing on average 10.5 kg were allotted at random to 4 diets within a 4*4 Latin square design, to study effects of Taro silage ( Colocasia esculenta) alone and in combination with rice bran (75:25, 50:50 and 25:75 silage: rice bran) on digestibility and N retention of growing pigs. The trial was conducted in the experimental area of Angang University (AGU), in Angang province, Vietnam, from 24 August to 16 October, 2010. Diets with 50% of taro silage plus 50% rice bran (DM basis) supported higher rates of feed intake (49.9 g DM/kg LW/day) than diets with more or less taro silage. Apparent digestibility coefficients of DM, OM and crude protein were high and tended to increase as the proportion of taro silage in the diet was increased from 25 to 100% (from 85 to 89% for DM and OM and from 81 to 88% for crude protein). N retention was higher with 50% taro silage in the diet than with 25 or 100% with intermediate values for 75% taro silage. However, when N retention was corrected for differences in DM intake, the highest N retention was on the 100% taro silage diet with no differences among the diets that contained rice bran. Urine excretion was increased threefold by raising dietary taro silage intake from 25 to 100% of the diet.