Rumen Degradability of Dry Matter and Crude Protein of Diets Containing Acacia Angustissima, Leucaena Trichandra and Calliandra Calothyrsus

Samples of browse legume diets Acacia angustissima (AA), Leucaena trichandra (LT) and Calliandra calothyrsus (CC) were evaluated for degradability using the nylon bag technique with three rumen-cannulated steers in order to determine dry matter (DM) and crude protein (CP) disappearance. The browse legumes were included in the diets at 30% and they were made isonitrogenous such that each diet contained 16% CP. A completely randomized design (CRD) was used in this trial. The nylon bags were sequentially added for 0, 12, 24, 48, 72 and 96 hours. The results showed that the A. angustissima diet had a significantly higher (P<0.05) effective degradability value (81.85%) for DM than the L. trichandra diet (73.15%) and C. calothyrsus (62.27%) diets at a k-value of 0.02. The effective degradability of CP of 56.5% for A. angustissima diet was significantly different (P<0.05) from L. trichandra (38.0 %) and C. calothyrsus (24.9%). Potential degradability of DM ranged from 61% (CC) to 82.4% (AA) while that for CP ranged from 25.2% (CC) to 57.12% (AA). The findings of this study showed that diets prepared using A. angustissima were more degradable than those from L. trichandra and C. calothyrsus possibly due to differences in tannin content. It is concluded that highly degradable diets can be formulated for small ruminants using browse legumes.