摘要
The use of Mulato （Brachiaria mulato）, a new improved grass that has currently been introduced in Indonesia, in goats feeding system is lacking. This study aimed to examine the effects of supplementation of different legume leaves on feed intake, digestibility and daily liveweight gain of goats given Mulato grass as the basal diet. Twenty four male Kacang goats of approximately seven months old with initial body weight of 15.85 ± 0.56 （SE） kg were used. The experiment was a randomized block design with four treatments, and each treatment was replicated six times. The goats were randomly distributed into six groups according to their initial body weight rank. The dietary treatments tested were： TI： Mulato grass ad libitum （M）, T2： M ＋ Desmantus pernambucanus leaves （1.5% of body weight/day） （MD）, T3： M ＋ Gliricidia sepium leaves （1.5% of body weight/day） （MG）, and T4： M ＋ Leucaena leucocephala leaves （1.5% of body weight/day） （ML）. The animals were confined in individual metabolic crates during the study, which consisted of two weeks adaptation period and eight weeks measurement period. Parameters measured were feed dry matter intake （DMI）, dry matter digestibility （DMD）, estimated metabolisable energy intake （MEI）, metabolisable energy retention （MER） and daily liveweight gain （DLG）. Results showed that supplementation with different legume leaves to the goats receiving Mulato grass significantly increased （P 〈 0.05） total DMI, DMD, MEI, MER and DLG of the animals. Total DMI for goats treated with TI, T2, T3 and T4 were 3.61%, 3.85%, 3.98% and 3.89% of body weight/day, respectively. Feed DMD for the four treatments were 57.68%, 63.66%, 65.74% and 64.81% for T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively. DLG were 51.98, 69.84, 84.92 and 75.40 g/day for goats treated with T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively. It was concluded that supplementation of legume leaves to Kacang goats fed Mulato grass significantly increased feed DMI, DMD and the animals＇ DLG, but there were no significant differeces among the legume leaves as feed supplements.
