ACACIA PODS (Samanea saman) AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR CONCENTRATE ON GROWING AND LACTATING GOATS

Abstract

An experiment to assess the potential of acacia pods (AP) as a substitute for commercial concentrate (CC) on the production performance of growing and lactating goats was conducted. The aim was to investigate the probability of minimizing the cost of feeding goats with CC by using non-conventional feed resources. Fifteen (15) mixed-sex, upgraded growing goats with an average weight of 12±1.5kg and 12 upgraded, multiparous lactating goats on their 4th month of lactation were randomly assigned to the treatment diets containing 0%, 50% and 100% AP in the concentrate portion of a ration containing 70% roughage and 30% concentrate. Proximate analysis revealed that AP contained 90.28% dry matter (DM), 14.05% crude protein (CP), 2.23% ether extract (EE), 14.23% crude fiber (CF) and 65.83% nitrogen-free extract (NFE). Growing goats fed with 50% AP performed better in terms of final body weight, gain in weight, average daily gain and feed conversion efficiency. The average milk production per day appeared to have highly significant results (P<0.01), where, 0% AP had the highest average milk production of 646.11 liters. The highest net income was obtained in growing goats fed with 50% AP due to a significant (P<0.05) increase in body weight, while 0% AP in lactating goats had the highest net income due to the increase in milk production. It was, therefore, concluded that 50% AP in the concentrate diet could be used to significantly minimize the cost of feeding growing goats with CC. However, substituting AP in the diets of lactating goats had negative effects on their milk performance that reduced net income.