Digestibilidad in vivo de forrajeras arbustivas tropicales para la alimentación de cuyes (Cavia porcellus Linnaeus), en el litoral ecuatoriano.

The chemical-bromatological composition (Weende) and in vivo digestibility of four forage shrubs was analyzed. In order to estimate the value of digestible energy (DE) 20 male guinea pigs with a mean weight of 900 g were used. A complete randomized design (CRD) with five treatments and four replications was applied. For mean analysis between treatments the Tukey test (P=0.05) was applied. Variables under study were: nutrients content 100 g DM-1, crude protein (CP), dry matter (DM), crude fiber (CF), organic matter (OMD). Digestibility of the following variables was determined: dry matter (DMD), organic matter (OMD), crude protein (CPD), crude fiber (CFD), ether extract (EED), free nitrogen extract (FNED), digestible energy (DED), total digestible nutrients (TDND), and ashes (AD). The evaluated treatments were: T0 = Diet (control), T1 = Morus alba Flour, T2 = Erythrina poeppigiana Flour, T3 = Tithonia diversifolia Flour and T4 = Hibiscus rosa-sinensis Flour. The treatments T0, T2 and T1 registered the best nutrient contents for CP (22.34%), CF (47.22%), DM (84.55%) and OMD (83.77%). The highest digestibility coefficients (P<0.01) were obtained by T0 = DM, OMD and TDN (73.55, 72.90 and 95.40%), T3 = CP, CF and EE (88.70, 84.42 and 83.59%) and T2 = Ash (91.68%), whilst for DE a value of 3546.00 kcal g/DM was registered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]