Nutritional evaluation of Pentas schimperiana as livestock feed and potential protein supplement

Pentas schimperiana is locally available and dominantly used as a dairy cattle feed in the Dawuro zone's Maraka district, Ethiopia. There is some information about its utilization practice, however, data on its nutritional benefit is limited. This research aimed to examine the chemical content and digestibility of P. schimperiana for use as cattle feed during the dry season. For this study, a 2x2 factorial design with two agro-ecologies (midland and highland) and two seasons (wet and dry) was used for this study. P. schimperiana leaves, twigs and stems were gathered and processed for laboratory analysis from two agro-ecologies and two seasons. The chemical composition, in-vitro digestibility, and in-Sacco degradability of the samples were determined after incubation at 0, 6, 12, 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours. Effective degradability (ED) and Potential degradation (PD) were computed. The collected data were subjected to an Analysis of Variance and the means that had significant deference, the mean separation was performed by Tukey with alpha level of 0.05. In-vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD) (87.41%) and crude protein (CP) (17.39%) were significantly higher in highland. Digestible crude protein (DCP) was significantly larger in dry than in the wet season with the content of neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), and acid detergent lignin (ADL) decreased. During the wet season, potential degradability (PD) and effective degradability (ED) of DM were highest in the highland with a decrease in leg time, which was related to the low content of ADF, ADL, NDF, tannin, and high CP in vegetative stages of P. schimperiana. The result indicates that P. schimperiana might be used as supplementary feeds to enhance utilization of low-quality feed resources and improve the performance of ruminants during the dry season when feed is scarce.