Fruits and Vegetables Residue Based Ration

Dry Matter Intake and Nutrient Utilization

The effect of 4 levels (0,7,14 and 21 kg/cow/d) of fresh ripe banana peel (RBP) on ruminal dry matter degradability of Kikuyu and African Star grass was evaluated. The addition of RBP did not affect Kikuyu and African Star dry matter degradability but increased their ruminal degradation rate (Dormond et al., 1998). El-Ghani (1999) reported that Digestibility coefficients values of DM, CP, EE and NFE decreased significantly with increasing percentage of banana plant waste in the ration of dairy cows. The IVDMD value of cabbage waste was reported as 80.4 per cent (Mekasha et al., 2002).

It was reported that banana leaves could be used as emergency feeds for ruminants but the digestibility decreased as the level of banana leaves increased in the diet. Foulkes and Preston (1978) reported that the dry matter of banana leaves and pseudostems was relatively digestible for ruminants i.e., 65% digestibility for leaves and 75 % for the pseudostems. However, despite this apparently high dry matter digestibility, the leaves and pseudostems can barely meet the maintenance requirements of animals. They recommended that urea and highly digestible forage or sweet potato should be used as supplements to pseudostems or leaves being fed. In fact, it has been well established that the greatest limitation of using bananas as a feed for ruminants is the lack of fermentable nitrogen and hence banana diet must always be supplemented with a source of nitrogen such as urea.

Mekasha et al. (2002) reported that IVDMD value of orange and banana peel was 82.6 and 72.9 per cent respectively. Porte et al, (1993) suggested that inclusion of tomato pomace (TP) did not affect daily weight gain and feed conversion efficiency. Gain and external fat deposition tended to be better with 40 % TP. It was concluded that up to 40% tomato pomace could be included in the diet of steers without affecting performance. Khattab et al. (2000) fed a ration consisting of 30 % rice straw and 70% concentrate mixture. In the study 30 and 60 % of concentrate mixture was replaced by agro-industrial by products combination (ABC). ABC consisted of empty pea pods 25, orange residues 15, date seeds 13, potato peel 20, sunflower meal 25, limestone 1.0 and common salt 1.0%. DMI and efficiency of feed utilization were apparently higher for diet containing ABC than that of control diet. Mekasha et al. (2002) found that the IVDMD value of cabbage waste as 80.4 per cent.

Milk Yield and Composition

EL-Gahni (1999) reported that banana plant waste could be included for dairy cows up to 15 % without any adverse effect on milk yield. Atreja and Khan (2002) reported that milk yield was significantly higher in goats fed diets based on agro-industrial vegetable residues. The difference in milk yield and 4 % FCM yield were not significant (P>0.05) in control diet as well as in 30% and 60% of ABC based diet (Khattab et al., 2000). Similar results were reported by (Nour, et al., 1981) who found no significant differences in milk yield and 4 % FCM of cows fed some agro industrial by products. Fat, TS, lactose and ash percentage of milk of goats receiving the ABC rations were apparently higher than that of control ration. Milk protein content was significantly higher for goats fed the combinations than the control (Khattab et al., 2000). Percentages of individual fatty acids in goat’s milk had higher concentration of C10, C12, C14, iso C16, C16 and C18 acids. However the control diet significantly increased C16:1 and C18:1  fatty acids . In addition control diet tended to increase C6, C15:1, C17:1 and C18:1 fatty acids (Khattab et al., 2000). However when goats were fed rations containing different levels of ABC, unsaturated fatty acids and long chain fatty acids decreased.