Chemical composition and rumen degradability of byproducts available in the Amazon region

Abstract

This study evaluated the chemical composition and ruminal degradability of dry matter (DM), neutral detergent fiber corrected for ash and protein (NDFap) and crude protein (CP) in byproducts of African oil palm (palm cake, kernel or fiber), macaúba (pulp cake and kernel cake), acai (acai fruit), babassu (kernel cake) and pineapple (peel, crown and bagasse silage). Nineteen rumen-fistulated sheep were kept in individual stalls, receiving a daily diet composed of elephant grass silage and corn and soybean concentrate. After preparation in nylon bags, the byproduct samples were incubated for 0, 3, 6, 12, 16, 18, 24, 48, 72, 96, 120 and 144 hours, with three replicates of each ingredient per incubation time. The divergence between the protein nutritional value and energy nutritional value, based on discriminatory variables between groups, was estimated by cluster analysis. The effective degradability of DM, NDFap and CP for the different byproducts was, respectively, 35.9, 26.9 and 59.0% for palm cake; 48.3, 34.3 and 76.4% for palm kernel; 21.1, 6.6 and 50.3% for palm fiber; 34.3, 15.0 and 52.8% for macaúba pulp cake; 58.1; 63.0 and 51.6% for macaúba kernel cake; 49.7, 49.6 and 41.8% for babassu cake; 53.4, 40.5 and 79.8% for pineapple bagasse silage; and 21.3, 17.0 and 38.9% for acai fruit. Based on their NDFap and CP characteristics, the feeds were clustered in up to four different groups.