Nutritional evaluation of water hyacinth as ruminant feed to curtail its environmental menace in Nigeria

Abstract

The suitability of water hyacinth for feeding livestock was studied. The nutrient compositions of stacked water hyacinth for different days were determined. The stacked water hyacinth was incubated for in vitro gas production for 24 hrs. The total gas volume (ml/200 mg DM) at post
incubation was measured. Methane (mmol/200 mg DM) was evaluated by introducing 10M NaOH into the content. Metabolize energy (MJ/kg DM) and organic matter degradability (%) were calculated. Acceptability of the forage to livestock was assessed using a cafeteria method in 8 adult small ruminants. (Babayemi et al 2006). Result showed that the crude protein CP (g/100 g DM) ranged between 10.20 – 10.77, while the neutral detergent fibre NDF (g/ 100 g DM) range from 51 -63, the days of stacking increased the Dry matter of the forage, Total gas production (ml) of stacked water hyacinth varied significantly (P<0.05) ranging from 14.25 – 18.00, the metabolize energy and methane also showed significant variation (P<0.05) ranging from 4.81 – 5. 32 and 3.5 – 6.5 respectively. The short chain fatty acids also varied significant (P<0.05) ranging from 0.28 – 0.37. The acceptability of stacked forage was similar for water hyacinth stacked for 5, 10, 15 and 20, days but poor for fresh water hyacinth. It is concluded that water hyacinth can serve as fodder for ruminants.

Keywords: Acceptability, degradation, fermentation, forage, incubation, methane, protein, water hyacinth.