Determination Of Nutritive Values Of Browsable Plants Utilised By Cattle During The Dry Season In Sibbinda Constituency Of Zambezi Region - Namibia

ABSTRACT

This study was conducted in the Sibbinda constituency of Zambezi region in Namibia to determine and contrast the nutritional values of available browsable plants and to recommend and promote the use of these browsable plants and plant parts as cattle feed supplements during dry seasons. In depth focus group discussions and interviews were conducted to glean indigenous knowledge on how cattle utilize the browse in- situ. A total of 200 households from the Sibbinda constituency were interviewed through a questionnaire to identify locally important browse species. Besides that, cattle were followed and observed while grazing and browsing undisturbed .This was done to confirm and validate the indigenous knowledge obtained from focus group discussion with communal farmers in the Sibbinda constituency. The palatability was determined through a structured experiment were the browse was offered in feeding pens. The palatability trial revealed contrast in the palatability of leaves and pods browsed by cattle during the dry season in Sibbinda constituency. Browsable tree and shrub leaves were collected for botanic identification, chemical composition analysis and feed evaluation. A total of 10 different browse species were identified. Ranking analysis revealed the following five browse species as the most common ones in order of importance; Acacia erioloba, Dichrostachy cinerea, Guibourlia coleosperm and Colosphospermum mopane. The chemical composition, digestable energy, metabolisable energy and the digestibility were compared by F-Test using the SPSS software version 21. The crude protein (CP) values of the edible components ranged between 9.4 to 27.2% and were significantly different (P