Effects of including scrapes of residual dehydrated cassava in sheep feeding on intake and nutrient digestibility

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the inclusion of 0%, 10%, 20%, and 30% of scrapes residual dehydrated cassava (SRDC) in sheep feed on the intake and total digestibility coefficient (DC) of nutrients. We used four sheep with body weight (BW) of 26.0 kg, distributed in a Latin square design. The sheep were placed in metabolism cages and received two meals a day. The variables studied were subjected to analysis of variance and differences were tested using regression analysis at the 5% significance level. We determined that the inclusion of different concentrations of SRDC in sheep feeding did not modify (p>0.05) the intake of intake of dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP), ether extract (EE), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), or total carbohydrates (TC) expressed in g animal(-1) day(-1), g kg(0.75-1) and % BW). On average 2.83%, 2.58%, 0.34%, 0.07%, 1.62%, 0.91%, and 2.24% of the BW were obtained for intake of DM, OM, CP, EE, NDF, ADF, and TC, respectively. However, the four experimental diets negatively affected the NFC intake and % BW (p<0.05). Different concentrations (0%, 10%, 20%, and 30%) of SRDC in sheep diets did not influence (p>0.05) the digestibility coefficient of most of the variables measured (DM, OM CP, EE, NDF, ADF, TCH, NFC, with average values of 67.79%, 67.61%, 53.87%, 81.42%, 55.61%, 39.07%, 70.95%, and 91.48%, respectively. Thus, we conclude that the inclusion of up to 30% of SRDC in sheep diets would not affect intake or nutrient digestibility.