Pigeon pea as a ruminant feed

Cheva-Isarakul, B.

doi:1992.5.3.549

Article

Ruminant Nutrition and Forage Utilization

Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences 1992;5(3): 549-558.
https://doi.org/10.5713/ajas.1992.549 Published online September 1, 1992.

Pigeon pea as a ruminant feed

B. Cheva-Isarakul

Abstract

The study on the potential use of pigeon pea (PP) as a ruminant feed was carried out with sheep in 3 experiments. Digestibility of dry pigeon pea leaves (PPL) and pigeon pea seeds (PPS) determined by differential and regression methods respectively, with rice straw (RS) as a basal diet, revealed that PPS contained higher nutritive value and palatability than PPL. On dry matter (DM) basis, PPL and PPS contained 19.8 and 20.0% CP, 7.3 and 2.3% EE, 6.0 and 4.4% ash, 61.1 and 51.7% NDF, and 29.4 and 17.5% ADF, respectively. The trypsin inhibitor activity in the seed was 3 times of that in the leaves (19.5 vs 7.0 mg TIA/g DM). The digestibility of PPL and PPS were 50.2 and 72.2% in DM, 52.7 and 73.3% in OM, 51.0 and 65.1% in CP respectively. DM intake as well as the digestibility of most nutrients increased with the increasing level of PPS. Digestible energy (DE), Total digestible nutrient (TDN) and N-balance of sheep fed solely PPS, estimated by regression method, was 3.2 kcal/g, 71.1% and 6.3 g/d respectively. Pigeon pea seeds can be well used to substitute soybean meal in concentrate rations for ruminants or directly supplemented to low quality roughages.

Keywords: Pigeon Pea; Ruminant Feed; Sheep; Digestibility; N-Balance