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Nutritional values of available ruminant feed resources in smallholder dairy farms in Rwanda

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Abstract

Smallholder dairy farmers in Rwanda use diversity of resources to cope with endemic feed shortages. However, there is inadequate real farm data to support farmer decisions on choices of options. The main objective of this study was to evaluate nutritional quality of feed types that farmers use in different agro-ecological zones of Rwanda. Samples of feed types were collected from 90 randomly selected households in the low- and mid-high-altitude zones of Rwanda and analysed for proximate composition, contents of metabolisable energy (ME), organic matter digestibility (OMD) and neutral detergent fibre digestibility (NDFd). Rumen fermentation characteristics and efficiency of energy utilisation were examined by determining partitioning factor (PF). Results showed that only five out of 24 feed types were common in both districts. Chemical composition, OMD, ME, NDFd and PF of these feed types differed significantly (P < 0.05) in their nutritional attributes. This suggests that a common feed composition table can be used as a component of the decision support tool for rational feed resource development and utilisation in the smallholder farms in the selected agro-ecologies of Rwanda.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the partial financial support from the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) under “Climate Smart Brachiaria grass to improve livestock production in East Africa” project funded through Biosciences for eastern and central Africa under the International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI), Nairobi, Kenya. The authors are also grateful to farmers in Bugesera and Nyamagabe districts for allowing us to collect feed resources from their farms.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Department of Animal Science and Poultry Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg Campus, Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209, South Africa

    Mupenzi Mutimura & Ignatius Verla Nsahlai

  2. Department of Animal Production, Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB), P.O. Box 5016, Kigali, Rwanda

    Mupenzi Mutimura & Cyprian Ebong

  3. International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), A.A. 6713, Cali, Colombia

    Idupulapati Madhusudana Rao

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  1. Mupenzi Mutimura
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  2. Cyprian Ebong
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  3. Idupulapati Madhusudana Rao
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  4. Ignatius Verla Nsahlai
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Correspondence to Mupenzi Mutimura.

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Mutimura, M., Ebong, C., Rao, I.M. et al. Nutritional values of available ruminant feed resources in smallholder dairy farms in Rwanda. Trop Anim Health Prod 47, 1131–1137 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-015-0839-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-015-0839-y

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