Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Marathwada Agricultural University, Parbham-431 402, India
Online published on 29 December, 2011.
Nutritive value of some tree leaves viz. peepal (Ficusreligosa), ber (Zizyphus mauriatiana) and babul (Acacia arabica) were evaluated in Osmanabadi goats and compared with nutritive values of fodders viz. lucerne (Medic ago sativa) and maize (Zea mays). All the tree leaves were having more or less same level of CP content. The CF content of the tree leaves were substantially lower than that of cultivated fodders. The DM intake was significantly higher (P < 0.01) on feeding babul leaves than other tree leaves, whereas amongst the cultivated forages DM intake was higher on maize than on lucerne. The DCP and TDN intake were also higher on babul leaves than other two tree leaves. The digestibility coefficients for DM, CP, CF, EE and NFE were 55.21,65.05,34.29,42.90 and 62.24 in babul leaves; 52.39,41.87,43.55,37.53 and 66.40 in ber leaves; 43.26,46.34,44.72,36.41 and 61.62 in peepal leaves; 64.11,67.90,57.28,53.31and 71.68 in lucerne and 66.41, 68.09, 66.99, 51.29 and 71.62% in maize, respectively. The NVI recorded during the study was 74.02, 67.56, 41.93,76.35 and 78.86 for babul, ber, peepal, lucerne and maize, respectively.
