Potential use of Tubers and Fruit Peels as Feed Ingredients in Livestock Ration Formulation in the Kingdom of Lesotho

During the dry season, the shortage of quality feeds needed to sustain livestock production has been a major problem in many developing countries, including the kingdom of Lesotho. Agro-allied by-product wastes obtained from the processing of agricultural products can possibly be converted to unconventional sources of animal feed. Therefore, this study evaluated the fibre and anti-nutritional constituents of important agricultural wastes in Lesotho namely, Irish potato peel meal, sweet potato peel meal, sweet orange peel meal and banana peel meal, to determine their feed value because of the negative effect these nutrients can elicit in livestock and poultry at higher levels. Prior to chemical analyses, dried peels of each banana fruit (BF), sweet orange fruit (SOF), sweet potato (SP), and Irish potato (IP) were milled into a fine powder to pass through a 0.5 mm sieve screen by grinding machine (mrc-SM-450 L) and stored in labelled sealed laboratory plastic bottles. The determinations of fibre fractions and anti-nutritional factors in each sample were carried out in triplicates. The fibre fractions differed significantly (p<0.05) among the peels. NDF varied from 31.00% - 39.00%, ADF 15.33% - 24.33%, ADL 3.57% - 11.67%, hemicellulose 10.00% - 22.33% and cellulose 9.00% - 17.33%. Fruit peels had significantly (p<0.05) higher ADF than tuber peels and, lower (p<0.05) hemicellulose than tuber peels. Anti-nutritional factors differed significantly (p<0.05) among the peels, and varied between 1.35% - 5.65% in alkaloid, 0.06% - 0.44% in oxalate, 3.39% - 8.32% in flavonoid and 0.21% - 2.03% in tannin. Flavonoid is highest in all peels except sweet potato peel, while oxalate is lowest. The results showed that fibre constituents levels met ruminant requirements, and anti-nutritional factors were within safe limits for ruminant intake, therefore the peels could be incorporated into their feed as a source of roughage.