Leaves
Sal tree leaves are used as a roughage of medium to poor quality (Orwa et al., 2009).
Seeds and oil cake
Decorticated sal seeds included at 40% in the diet of cattle, to replace rice bran, were not digestible (Dash et al., 1972). Salseed cake has been successfully used in cattle. Up to 20% has been recommended (Göhl, 1982) and it was possible to include it up to 30% in diets for growing heifers, with or without 2% urea (Sonwane et al., 1974 cited by Devendra, 1985)
In growing calves, deoiled sal seed meal was also fed at up to 30% without affecting animal health, intake and performance (Garg et al., 1984).
Deoiled sal seed meal may also replace maize in dairy cows at up to 20% of the diet without affecting the animal performances and milk yield (Rajagopal et al., 1983).
However, sal seed cake has a low protein content, and the presence of tannins adversely affects the utilization of other feed proteins. Attempts to remove tannins from sal seed meal are neither effective nor practicable (Negi, 1982). It has thus been proposed to use sal seed cake for the protein-binding properties of its tannins to improve feed utilization of forages containing highly degradable protein (Shalini Trivedi et al., 2007).
