A note on the effect of fresh mulberry leaves, fresh sweet potato vine or a mixture of both foliages on intake, digestibility and N retention of growing pigs given a basal diet of broken rice

摘要

Threecrossbredcastratemalepigs,weighingonaverage24kgwereallottedatrandomtothreedietstostudytheeffectoffreshsweetpotatovineandfreshmulberryleaves,givenseparatelyormixedtogetheronintake,digestibilityandNretentionofgrowingpigswithabasaldietofbrokenrice.Theactualintakesofthefoliagesaccountedfor21to28%ofthetotalDMintake,.andabout55%ofthecrudeproteinintake.Therewasastrongindication(P=0.066)thatintakesoffoliageDMwerehigherwhenthesweetpotatovineswereallorpartofthefoliagesupplement.TotalintakesofDMandcrudeproteindidnotdifferamongthetreatments.CoefficientsofapparentdigestibilitywerehighforDMandorganicmatterwithnodifferencesamongthetreatments.TheapparentdigestibilitycoefficientsoftheDM,OMandcrudeproteinwerehigherforthemulberrydietcomparedwiththedietsinwhichtheproteinsupplementcontainedsweetpotatovines.Nretentionwashighonalldiets,equivalenttoaliveweightgainoftheorderof250-300g/day,withasuggestionofahighervalueforthedietwithmulberryleavesItisconcludedthattheproteininthefreshfoliageofmulberryleavesiswellutilizedbygrowingpigsfedabasaldietofbrokenrice.Therewerenoadvantagesfromgivingamixtureofsweetpotatovinesandmulberryleavescomparedwitheitherfoliagegivenalone.