Author : Darlis

Summary : A study was conducted to compare the digestive efficiency and urea kinetics between Malaysian indigenous goats and sheep fed rice straw + soybean meal(SSB) and rice straw + soy bean meal + sago (SSG). The Dry Matter (DM), Nitrogen (N), Organic Matter (OM) and Energy (E) intakes in goats and sheep were similar when fed SSB diet, but with SSG diet, DM intake of goats was higher than sheep, while no significant differences in N, OM and E intakes were observed. With SSB diet, goats could digest ADF significantly (P<0.05) more than sheep, but sheep showed higher (P<0.05) digestibility values for Crude Protein (CP), OM and E than those of goats. However, with SSG diet only digestibility values for E were significantly different between the two animal species. Potential degradability for DM and NDF of straw were higher (P<0.05) in goats than sheep when fed SSB diet. However, goats had lower values (P>0.05) in N potential degradability of Soybean Meal (SBM) than sheep.