Effects of Protein and Carbohydrate Supplements on Feed Digestion in Indigenous Malaysian Goats and Sheep

Experiments were conducted to determine the effects of soybean meal (SBM) as a source of protein and sago meal (SM) as a source of carbohydrate on in situ and in vivo digestibility of dietary components in four male goats (Kambing Katjang) and four male sheep (Malin) weighing 25-35 kg. Rumen volume, as well as rumen fluid dilution rate were also determined. The animals were housed in single pens with individual feeding and drinking troughs and each animal was fitted with a rumen fistula. They were fed two diets : chopped rice straw+200 g soybean meal (SBM), and chopped rice straw+190 g soybean rneal+300 g sago meal (SBM+SM). Rice straw was offered ad libitum. The supplements were isonitrogenous (80 g crude protein/animal/d), but the proportions of dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), crude fibre (CF), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and acid detergent fibre (ADF) were lower in the SBM supplement (191, 165, 11, 40, 15 g/animal/d for DM, OM, CF, NDF and ADF, respectively) than in the SBM+SM supplement (445, 423, 25, 102, 38 g/animal/d for DM, OM, CF, NDF and ADF, respectively). Two animals from each species were fed either supplement in a cross-over design in two periods. Each period lasted for four weeks. In situ and in vivo digestibility studies were carried out, followed by the determination of rumen volume and rumen fluid dilution rate. The results showed that straw DM and total DM intakes of goats (average of 48.7 g/kg W0.75, 72.7 g/kg W0.75, respectively) were significantly (p