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Nutritive value of three tropical forage legumes and their influence on growth performance, carcass traits and organ weights of pigs

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Abstract

The effects of tropical forage legumes on feed intake, growth performance and carcass traits were investigated in 16 groups of two Large White × Duroc pigs. The diets consisted of a commercial corn–soybean meal diet as the basal diet and three forage-supplemented diets. Four groups of control pigs received daily 4 % of body weight of the basal diet, and 12 groups of experimental pigs were fed the basal diet at 3.2 % of body weight completed with fresh leaves of one of the three forage legumes (Psophocarpus scandens, Stylosanthes guianensis and Vigna unguiculata) ad libitum. The study lasted 90 days. The in vitro digestion and fermentation of the forage legumes were also determined. The in vitro digestible energy content of the legumes was between 0.72 and 0.77 that of the basal diet (14.4 MJ/kg dry matter (DM)). V . unguiculata was the most digestible forage legume expected for crude protein digestibility. Feeding forage legumes lowered the dry matter intake by 4.5 to 9.6 % (P < 0.05), final body weight (P = 0.013), slaughter weight, average daily gain and hot carcass weight (P < 0.05) without affecting the feed conversion ratio (FCR), dressing percentage and back fat thickness. In conclusion, using forage to feed pig could be interesting in pig smallholder production with limited access to concentrate, as FCR was not significantly affected.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge Wallonie-Bruxelles International (WBI), the Development Cooperation Agency (DGD) and the Commission de la Coopération au Développement de l’Académie de Recherche et d’Enseignement supérieur (ARES-CCD; Brussels, Belgium) for funding this study (CAVTK and Systèmes intégrés projects) and the workers in Kolo-Fuma (SEBO, Bas-Congo, DRC) for their support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université de Kinshasa, Mont-Amba, Lemba, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

    Bienvenu Kambashi, Gaetan Kalala & Jacques Mafwila

  2. University of Liège, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, Precision Livestock and Nutrition Unit, Passage des Déportés, 2, 5030, Gembloux, Belgium

    Bienvenu Kambashi, Christelle Boudry, Pascale Picron & Jérôme Bindelle

  3. University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Denis Dochain & Xavier Rollin

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  1. Bienvenu Kambashi
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  8. Jérôme Bindelle
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Correspondence to Jérôme Bindelle.

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Statement of animal rights

All experimental animals were handled with respect according to the rules and regulations in force in the European Union following similar procedures to those usually accepted by the Ethical Committee of the University of Liège (Belgium) for experiments performed in Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech (Belgium).

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Kambashi, B., Kalala, G., Dochain, D. et al. Nutritive value of three tropical forage legumes and their influence on growth performance, carcass traits and organ weights of pigs. Trop Anim Health Prod 48, 1165–1173 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-016-1070-1

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