Abstract

CASTELLANI, P et al. IN VIVO DIGESTIVE ASSESMENT OF Copernicia alba (Karanda´y) FRUIT THROUGH DIGESTIBILITY EXPERIMENTS IN SHEEP. Compend. cienc. vet [online]. 2014, vol.4, n.1, pp.13-18. ISSN 2226-1761.

ABSTRACT. This work, experimental in nature, involved digestive assessment in vivo utilization of different levels of Copernicia alba fruits (karanda´y in Guaraní) inclusion in mixtures with Digitaria decumbens hay (grass pangola). For this, 8 castrated sheep were rose in metabolic cages, distributed according to a Latin square design, in 4 groups of 2 animals each, 4 experimental periods at a time, and 4 treatments consisted of 4 levels including Copernicia alba fruits (20%, 40%, 60% and 80%) were mixed with hay used as voluminous forage (basic food). The apparent digestibility of dry matter (DMD), organic matter (OMD), crude protein (DPB), neutral detergent fiber (DFND) and ether extract (DEE) from basic food were first determined and then for each different proportions of Copernicia alba fruits. Latin square design´s results were subjected to variance analysis, resulting statistically significant treatment effect only on DEE (p <0.05), which allowed to observe it´s evolution by a regression drawing. In addition, Copernicia alba´s apparent digestibility coefficients were determined by applying differences calculations method, the results were: 53, 59, 53 and 88% for DMD, OMD, DFND and DEE respectively. The study concluded that proportional incrementation of Copernicia alba fruits inclusion do not have an associative effect over digestibility reduction or improvement in bromatolological ration components except for EE that was actually increased.

Keywords : apparent digestibility; Copernicia alba; Digitaria decumbens; sheep.

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