Sesbania rostrata supplements feeds for broiler chicks

Sesbania rostrata fixes more nitrogen from the air than azolla and other legumes. This is because it has 5 to 10 times more nodules found in its stems as well as in its roots. With these, it is able to grow luxuriantly in logged, saline, alkaline and highly cultivated soils. Its high herbage yield and protein content make it a promising feed for poultry and livestock. Tests at UPLB [University of the Philippines Los Banos, College, Laguna, Philippines], however, show otherwise. Chickens fed with corn-soybean meal mixed with Sesbania rostrata leaf meal (SRLM) ate more but lost weight more rapidly that the tests had to be stopped. Mixed with corn and soybean at 3, 6 and 9 percent to make up the test diets called SRLM, all diet treatments contained 21 percent crude protein and supplied from 2922 to 2975 kcal of metabolizable energy, or about the same as that supplied by the control diet, which consisted mainly of corn and soybean meal without SRLM. The test and control diets both contained 5 percent fish meal, 1.75 percent tricaphos, 0.20 percent salt 0.20 percent vitamin-mineral premix and varying amounts of coco oil. The control diet contained 5 percent rice bran. Why the birds ate more can be explained by the lower metabolizable energy of the SRLM compared with the corn-soybean meal. Thus, birds consumed more at 9 percent SRLM to satisfy their energy needs. But despite their high consumption, the birds did not gain weight, unlike the birds which were fed with azolla. This can be traced to inhibitors, a characteristic of leguminous plants, said the researchers. In most legumes, canavanine, an uncommon amino acid, acts as antimetabolite to a nutritionally important amino acid called arganine. This does not seem to affect ruminants, who are fed capiously with sesbania, although the researchers are not certain whether canavanine resides in Sesbania.