Utilization of Madre de cacao (Gliricidia sepium (Jacq.) steud.) as feed for sheep

Two feeding trials and an in vitro digestibility trial using sheep were conducted to evaluate the feeding value of gliricidia in combination with rice straw. In Experiment 1, local gliricidia accessions contained higher crude protein (23.19 vs 22.46%), higher lignin (16.24 vs 9.33%) but lower cell wall components (38.99 vs 42.19%) than those of foreign ones. In fresh leaves, coumarin content was higher in local than in foreign ones (2.37 vs 0.83%) but was undetectable in dry leaves. Lethal dose 50 of crude gliricidia extract in rats was computed at 128.103 g/kg body weight (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3 there were no significant differences among the treatments in terms of daily dry matter intake, average daily gain and feed efficiency. Crude protein intake was significantly higher (P0.01) at 0.6% BW either as fresh or dried gliricidia than at 0.3% BW as fresh and the 0.6% BW concentrate (Control). In Experiment 4, sheep fed with 80% gliricidia + 10% setaria + 10% rice straw had significantly higher (P0.01) ADG and DDMI than the other replaced gliricidia in the ration, the ADG and DDMI significantly decreased. Dietary treatments containing gliricidia were more efficient (P0.05) than those with 20% concentrate. Blood tests indicated no significant differences in the RBC and WBC counts, hemoglobin contents and clotting time of experimental sheep fed varying gliricidia levels. In Experiment 5, digestibility of dry matter and nitrogen free extract increased significantly (P0.05) with increasing gliricidia level in the diet (40.12 and 46.28% at 0% and 53.62 and 65.35% at 100%). However, the 100% gliricidia diet had the lowest (P0.05) digestibility for crude fiber, neutral detergent fiber and cellulose (17.58, 22.43 and 11.88%, respectively) but significantly highest (P0.05) in total digestible nutrients and digestible energy (49.98% and 2891 kcal/kg, respectively). Rumen pH, Nh3-N concentration and BUN values were not significantly influenced by different gliricidia levels