Premaratne et al., 1998. Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci., 11 (6): 692-696

A 30-day experiment was conducted with 8 growing Dorset X South Down sheep, initial weight 20.6 kg and average final weight 23.7 kg, in a 4 X 4 Latin square design to study the effect of type of forage supplementation to a basal diet of rice straw (ad libitum) and cassava (Manihot esculenta, 9 g DM/kg0.75 daily) on voluntary intake, digestion, rumen microbial protein synthesis and daily weight gain. Forage used included Leucaena leucocephala (L), Gliricidia maculata [G. sepium] (G) and Tithonia diversifolia (T) at a DM supplementation level of 13 g/kg0.75 daily. Organic matter intake was 40.4, 55.5, 55.0 and 54.9 g/kg0.75 daily for control (C, ad libitum straw and cassava), L, G and T, respectively, and significantly lower for C than for the supplemented diets. Intake of supplementary forage also had a significantly positive effect on voluntary rice straw intake. All forage-supplemented diets showed significantly higher whole diet organic matter digestion than C (488 g/kg), while T (557 g/kg) differed significantly from L (516 g/kg) but not from G (526 g/kg). Daily weight gain was -1.7, 5.2, 5.4 and 4.7 g/kg, for C, L, G and T, respectively, significantly lower for C than for forage-supplemented diets. Efficiency of microbial protein synthesis estimated from urinary excretion of purine derivatives was lower for C (3.8 g microbial N/kg digestible organic matter intake (DOMI)) than for forage-supplemented diets (11.3, 9.0 and 9.4 g microbial N/kg DOMI for L, G and T, respectively).