Effects of jackfruit leaves and young jackfruit on nutrient digestibility, weight gain and methane production in growing goats
An experiment was conducted on five F1 crossbred female goats (♂ Saanen×♀ Bach Thao), 5 months old, body weight at 17.12±1.67 kg to evaluate effects of jackfruit leaves and young jackfruit replaced to elephant grass in the diet on nutrient intake, nutrient digestibility, body weight gain and CH4 emission. All animals were fed 40% commercial concentrate in the diet, mean while other amounts were elephant grass, jackfruit leaves and/or young jackfruit. The study was carried out as a 5×5 Latin square design with 5 treatments including: 60% elephant grass (NT1), 30% elephant grass + 30% young jackfruit (NT2), 30% elephant grass+ 30% jackfruit leaves (NT3), 30% elephant grass + 15% jackfruit leaves + 15% young jackfruit (NT4), and 30% jackfruit leaves + 30% young jackfruit (NT5). Each period included 9 days for adaptation and 5 days for sample collection. Results showed that NT3 and NT5 increased total nutrient intake including DM, OM and CP (P<0.001). Digestible DM and OM were improved as the use of jackfruit products at 60% in the diet in relative to the control (P<0.01). Diets containing jackfruit leaves at both 15 and 30% increased body weight gain of goats by 2.58-3.00 folds as compared to NT1 (P<0.01), the impressive increase of body weight gain was found in NT3. Replacement of jackfruit leaves to elephant grass in the diets led to reduce CH4 production by 192-250% in relative to NT1 (P<0.05). In conclusion, feeding either 30% jackfruit leaves or 30% jackfruit leaves plus 30% youth jackfruit is an ideal method to improve nutrient intake, digestible nutrients, body weight gain and decrease CH4 production of dairy goat in growing stage.
