Estimating Apparent Nutrient Digestibility of Diets Containing Leucaena leucocephala or Moringa oleifera Leaf Meals for Growing XXXX by Two Methods.

@entity8249 @entity95 @entity7452 @entity6701 @entity62 @entity3759
This study aimed to evaluate the nutrient digestibility of growing @entity95 fed diets with different levels of either Leucaena leucocephala (LLM) or Moringa oleifera (MOLM) leaf meals and also to compare total collection and @entity3759 marker methods for estimating digestibility. A total of 30 @entity7452 growing @entity95 (1.81  0.19 kg live weight on average) were randomly distributed into five experimental groups of six @entity95 each and were housed in individual cages. The groups were control, 30% LLM, 40% LLM, 30% MOLM, and 40% MOLM. All groups received pelleted diets for two weeks; diets also contained 4 g/kg @entity6701 as dietary marker. Daily feed intake was recorded during the whole experimental period and total feces were collected daily and weighed individually during four days. The results showed that there were no difference (p>0.05) in feed, @entity62 ( @entity62 ), organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP), digestible energy, and @entity8249 ( @entity8249 ) intake between the control group and the other experimental groups. The apparent digestibility values of @entity62 , OM, CP, @entity8249 , acid detergent fiber, and gross energy were the highest for control group (p = 0.001), meanwhile MOLM diets had generally higher nutrient digestibility coefficients than LLM diets. Increasing the inclusion level of leaf meal in the diet from 30% to 40% improved the digestibility of @entity8249 from 45.02% to 51.69% for LLM and from 48.11% to 55.89% for MOLM. Similar results for apparent nutrient digestibility coefficients were obtained when either total collection or indigestible marker method was used. In conclusion, the digestibility of MOLM containing diets were better than LLM diets, furthermore @entity3759 as an external marker could be used as a simple, practical and reliable method to estimate nutrients digestibility in @entity95 diets.
