Evaluation of local dairy goat feed resources in Kongwa district, Tanzania

Decrease in quantity and quality of pastures during the dry season in Kongwa District has resulted into reduced milk production from the improved dairy goat breeds in the area. Available indigenous leguminous tree and shrub leaves can supplement protein source, as they are adapted to the local conditions. Thus, two on-farm experiments were carried out to evaluate the effects of supplementing dairy goats with diets containing indigenous leguminous tree leaf meals as protein sources. Three iso-protein diets that contained an average crude protein (CP) of 10.7% to 15.2% were formulated based on Ficus thoningii leaf meal (FLM), Melia azederach leaf meal (MLM) and sunflower seed cake (SFC) as sources of protein in dietary treatments T1, T2 and T3, respectively. The fourth treatment (T4) comprised of maize bran (MB) only. In the first and second experiments, 24 lactating does and 32 growing dairy goat kids were used and supplemented with 30 g/kg W0.75 (on as fed basis) of FLM, MLM or SFC daily at 14:00 hours and the amount of their refusal determined simultaneously. The volumes of milk and animal body weights were recorded such that Saanen and Toggenburg animals in T3 and T2 showed the highest average milk yield (2.48 ± 0.15; 2.65 ± 0.14) litres/day for the first and (2.44 ± 0.15; 1.93 ± 0.15) litres/day for the latter, respectively. In the second experiment male and female kids on T3 and T2 had the highest growth rate (116.56 ± 6.41; 102.30 ± 6.59) g/day for the first and (78.50 ± 6.85; 115.06 ± 6.44) g/day for the latter, respectively. It is concluded that MLM can substitute oil seedcake like SFC in dairy goat diets as feeding them with MLM based diet resulted into increase in milk yield and growth rate of both lactating goats and kids similar to SFC.