A review of the effects of quality forage supplementation on growth performance of cattle and goats fed elephant grass basal diet

Muhammad Rusdy

Department of Forage Science and Grassland Management Faculty of Animal Science, Hasanuddin University, Indonesia
muhrusdy79@yahoo.co.id

Abstract

Elephant grass is well known because of its high dry matter yield potential but generally its quality .is low, especially when it is harvested at advanced stage of growth. In order to increase the growth performance of ruminants fed elephant grass basal diet, supplementation with quality forage is recommended. This review discussed the effect of supplementation of several quality forages on growth performance of cattle and goat fed on elephant grass basal diet. In cattle, supplementation of Leucaena, Gliricidia, Calliandra, Sesbania and Lucerne improved the growth performance of cattle fed on old elephant grass basal diet withLeucaena is the best supplement. In goats, Moringa, Leucaena, Gliricidia and Flemingia supplementation improved the growth performance with Moringa is the best supplement. In countries that protected from mimosine toxicity, growth performance of cattle and goat increased up to high levels of Leucaena supplementation, while in countries not protected from mimosine toxicity, supplementation with high levels of Leucaena is detriment to growth performance. Feed efficiency of goats fed with sole elephant grass is lower than cattle. It can be concluded that supplementation with quality forage leaves is very beneficial to increase growth performance of cattle and goats fed low quality elephant grass.

Keywords: animal production, Napier grass, nutritious forages

Introduction

In many developing countries of the tropics, productivity of ruminant animals is largely limited by seasonal availability of quality feeds. During the rainy season, pasture plants grow rapidly and, although their nutritive value is quite high at the beginning of rainy season, they mature rapidly during the dry season with resulting in decline of their nutritive value. Consequently, during the dry season, the farmers are forced to feed their animals with crop residues or standing hay that low in nutritive value, which lead to reduced feed intake, poor growth, delayed sexual maturity, and low milk yields (Gebregiorgis et al 2012). In densely populated areas of Indonesia, the shortage of feeds is aggravated by shrinking of grassland area as results of increasing land area for food and industrial crops, housing and industrial areas.

In Indonesia, to alleviate the problems, the government has been promoting the farmers to cultivate elephant grass, a grass that has high dry yield potential and wide adaptation to many climatic and soil conditions. This grass is commonly fed to ruminant animals in the stall feeding system. Presently, elephant grass is the most widely cultivated fodder in Indonesia.

As animal feed, elephant grass has been subjected to review (Rusdy 2016). In general, although it is harvested at proper intervals, this grass only can support low levels of animal production. This is attributed to the its high levels of NDF and ADF and low levels of crude protein and digestibility. Improvement of animal production from the low quality elephant could be conducted through supplementation with concentrate or high quality forages like legume and several other forages. In most tropical areas, the use of commercial concentrate is limited by high cost and unavailability. The use of quality forage leaves as supplement is more promising, because besides they are cheaper, they also contain low levels of fiber and higher levels of crude protein and some minerals. Many quality forages like tree legumes also more resistant to drought conditions, so availability of feeds can be more guaranteed throughout the year. Recent research also indicates that forage-fed animals have more health benefit than grain-fed animals (Axe, 2018).

WWith increasing of animal products demand in developing countries, there is increasing interest in the use of quality forage as supplement to improve the productivity of ruminants fed on low quality forage like old elephant grass. Although there are many high quality forage species have been fed to ruminants in the tropics, there is limited review concerning the effect of supplementation of these forages to ruminants fed on low quality elephant grass. The objective of this paper was to review the recent and relevant work concerning the use of quality forages to improve the growth performance of cattle and goat fed elephant grass basal diet.

Growth performance of cattle and goats fed sole elephant grass diets

Animal production from sole elephant grass diet under zero grazing is generaly low. Muinga et al (1992) reported live weight losses of 165 and 490 g/day in dairy cows when they were fed elephant grass with the height of 1.00 and 1.50 m, respectively. In Indonesia, Antari et al (2016) reported daily gain of 0.18, 0.26 and 0.11 kg/head in cattle breed of Ongole, Limousine – Ongole and Brahman fed diets with crude protein, NDF and ADF values of 7.40, 69.3 and 44.8%, respectively. Odhiambo (1974) reported daily gain of 0.34 kg when cattle fed elephant grass with age of 12 weeks. The higher daily gain was reported Kariuki et al (1998) who reported daily gain of 0.5 kg/head and the highest daily gain was reported in Kenya by Kaitho and Kariuki (1998) who reported average daily gain of 1.00 kg/head with sole elephant grass harvested at 7 weeks of regrowth (Table 1). However, this daily gain of 1.00 kg/head needs to be read with caution, because the protein and NDF content of elephant grass the authors used were 8.5 and 62.7%, respectively.

Due to lower their lower genetic potential for growth, dry matter intake and daily gain of goats fed sole elephant grass were lower than cattle. Dry matter intake and daily gain of goats fed sole elephant grass ranged from 281 to 591 g/day and - 19 to 16 g, respectively, while in cattle dry matter intake ranged from 5.20 to 8.49 kg/day and daily gain ranged from 0.31 to 1.00 kg, respectively (Table 1 and 2). Goats also showed lower feed efficiencies when fed sole elephant grass than cattle. Regardless of work of Kaitho and Kariuki (1998), average feed efficiency in cattle was 0.06 and goats was 0.05 (Table 1 and 2). This indicates that goats did not use elephant grass as well as cattle. This might be attributed to differences in physiology of digestion between the two species of animals. This is in line with Brown and Johnson (1985) that goats was less efficient in digesting low quality forages because they have smaller reticulo-rumen and shorter ruminal retention and therefore satisfy their nutrient requirements by higher intake. However, it is very difficult to draw a concrete conclusion as the data size is small.

Effects of quality forage supplementation on cattle growth performance

With quality forage supplementation, growth performance of cattle improved. The use of legume forages of Leucaena, Gliricidia, Calliandra, Sesbania, Desmodium, Sesbania and lucerne as supplement to cattle fed old elephant grass basal diets increased dry matter intake, daily weight gain and feed efficiency (Table 1). Desmodium distortum supplemented to dairy cows given elephant grass basal diet had also been reported to increase feed intake and milk yield of the animals (Mitimura et al 2018). Dry matter intake, digestibility and milk yield also increased when Mucuna prurens was supplemented to dairy cattle fed elephant grass basal diets (Nyambati et al 2003).

The positive effect of legume forage supplementations on intake and growth of ruminants could be attributed to the their high protein and energy contents. Protein supplementation to cattle fed low-quality grass has been reported to enhance the growth of fibrolytic bacteria, and increases the ruminal degradation and voluntary intake. The high protein and fermentable energy contents of legumes might contribute to higher digestibility and eventually having positive effect on daily gain. This is in line with Minson and Milford (1967) that legume supplementation of grass diets with less than 7% crude protein has been shown to increase dry matter intake and animal performance. The differential effects of each legume species supplementation on animal performance might be attributed to the different nutrient and anti-nutrient contents of each legume species.

Except for lucerne supplementation, Gliricidia supplementation resulted in lower feed intake in cattle (Table 1). The low acceptability of Gliricidia by ruminants has been suggested as a contributing factor towards its lower intake (Tjandraatmadja et al 1993). The higher NDF value of Gliricidia (49.5%) than Leucaena (46.9%) (Abdulrazak et al 1996) might also be a causative factor for the lower intake of Gliricidia. The lower DM intake and even daily gain make feed efficiencies of Gliricidia were lower than Leucaena (Table 1).

Of all legumes studied, Leucaena showed the best supplement, because it resulted in highest daily gain and feed efficiency (Table 1). The higher daily gain and feed efficiency of Leucaena over Gliricidia also was reported by Abdulrazak et al 2006). This might be attributed to the its higher bypass protein contents of Leucaena compared to Gliricidia.

Cattle performance tended to increase with increasing levels ofLeucaena and Gliricidia supplementation (up to 30 g DM/MW ^0.75) (Table 1). However, it needs further study to investigate the effect of higher levels of the two legumes supplementation, especially Leucaena supplementation on performance of cattle. This study is very important in countries where ruminants is not protected from mimosine toxicity. In not protected country like Bangladesh, Chowdhury (1997) reported that in bulls fed rice straw basal diet, the total dry matter intake showed diminishing return to increasing levels of Leucaena supplementation and the maximum intake was observed at around 20% Leucaena level. In countries where cattle protected from mimosine toxicity, the optimum levels of Leucaena supplementation seems to be higher. In Indonesia, Wahyuni et al  (1982) supplemented Leucaena at 0, 20, 40, 60, and 100% levels to cattle fed natural grass basal diet reported that 60% Leucaena was the best level because it yielded the highest weight gain. Further, Pamungkas et al  (2011) reported that weaned male Bali cattle fed Leucaena 100% consumed the highest daily matter intake (2.5 kg), daily gain (0.24 kg), and the lowest feed conversion (7.54) compared to commercial feed or mixture of commercial feed and Leucaena.

With Gliricidia supplementation, the highest growth performance of cattle was achieved when they fed elephant grass at 30 g DM/MW ^0.75 (Table 1). Also, it needs further study to determine the optimum level of Gliricidia in cattle fed old elephant grass basal diets. Preston and Leng (1987) reported that the growth rate of steers in Columbia fed on King grass supplemented with Gliricidia increased curvilinearly with supplementation level, with the highest growth rate at 50% Gliricidia (fresh basis). This different optimum level of Gliricidia may be attributed to the difference in quality of basal feed used.

Effects of quality forage supplementation on goat growth performance

Growth performance of goats fed elephant grass and supplemented with Leucaena leaves differed widely (Table 2). Work from Indonesia (Yates and Panggabean 1998) and Malaysia (Devendra 1982) indicate that with high levels of Leucaena supplementation, dry matter intake, live weight gain and feed efficiency increased.. In contrast, work from Uganda indicate that with high levels of Leucaena supplementation fed elephant grass based diet, live weight gain and feed efficiency of goats were negative (Lopenga et al 2009), Semenye (1990) also reported that in Kenya, when goats fed sole Leucaena from birth to mature, they exhibited Leucaena toxicity signs. These different results might be attributed to the different response of goats to mimosine toxicity present in Leucaena. Ruminants in several counties like Indonesia Malaysia, Thailand, Vanuatu, Seychelles, Mauritius, and Mexico are protected from mimosine toxicity (Halliday et al 2013) , while ruminants from other countries like Papua New Guinea, Australia, some other Pacific island and African countries are not protected from mimosine toxicity (Sethi and Kulkarni 2018). Presence of certain bacteria in the rumen of protected animals may degrade mimosine to non-poisonous substances.

Goats supplemented with 300 g/day Gliricidia exhibited higher dry matter intake and daily gain than goats fed on mixture of 150 g Gliricidia and 150 g Leucaena (Mpairwe et al 2003) (Table 1). This indicates that supplementation of Leucaena at 150 g level had negative effect on goats performance. It is suggested that supplementation Leucaena at that level, rumen bacteria could not degrade mimosine and DHP to non-poisonous substances, as commonly found in goats raised in African countries.

In the present review, supplementation Gliricidia, Flemingia, Moringa and Leucaena improved growth performance of goats, but non-leguminous plant of Moringa was more efficient when used as supplement than the other legumes (Table 2). The higher performance of goats fed basal diets mixture of guinea grass – cassava and supplemented with Moringa (Morus sp.) over Gliricidia or Leucaena had also reported by Adegun et al (2011). Babiker et al (2017) reported the higher growth performance of goats fed Moringa than fed alfalfa hay. Feed efficiency of goats fed Moringa was comparable with goats fed Digitaria decumbens hay basal diet and supplemented with 50 : 50% mixture of mulberry leaves and commercial concentrate (0.11) (Miller et al 2018). The higher animal performance of goats fed Moringa, both as supplement and sole diet could be, in part, be attributable to its better protein quality. Moringa had been reported to contain high bypass protein (47% versus 30% and 41% for Gliricidia and Leucaena, respectively) (Becker, 1995). High proportions of bypass protein have been reported to result in higher weight gain in ruminant animals (Preston and Leng, 1987).

Conclusion

• Feed efficieny of goat fed sole old elephant grass diet is lower than cattle.
  
  
• Quality forage of Leucaena, Gliricidia, Lucerne, Calliandra, Flemingia, Sesbania, Calliandra and Moringa, had positive effects on performance of ruminants fed old elephant grass basal diet, with Leucaena and Moringa are the best supplement for cattle and goats, respectively.
  
  
• In countries not protected from mimosine toxicity, Leucaena can be safely fed to cattle and goats up to high levels.

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Received 9 August 2018; Accepted 10 October 2018; Published 2 December 2018

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