Abstract 493

Bamualim,-A; Stachiw,-S; Jones,-RJ; Murray,-RM

Graduate School of Tropical Vet. Science, James Cook Univ., Townsville, Queensland 4811, Australia.

Proceedings-of-the-Australian-Society-of-Animal-Production. 1984, 15, 259-262; 14 ref.

Six weaned goats were used to evaluate fresh Leucaena leucocephala as a supplement to low-quality spear grass hay. The organic matter (OM) intake of spear grass alone (SG) was 154 g/day (21 g/kg0.75), of spear grass + urea (SG+U) 175 g (23 g/kg0.75), and of spear grass + Leucaena (SG+L) 275 g/day (38 g/kg0.75). The higher OM digestibility values of SG+L and SG+U enhanced digestible OM intake compared to the control treatment (SG), with values of 153, 96 and 73 g/day respectively. The non-ammonia nitrogen flowing from stomach in SG+L was 4.9 g/day, twice that with SG (2.4 g/day), due to more microbial N and dietary N (about 34% of Leucaena protein). It is suggested that using Leucaena to supplement low-quality roughage would improve animal performance.