Nutritive values of silages from sorghum and napier, guinea, pangola and guatemala grasses

Abstract

Digestion trials were conducted with sheep to determine the nutritive values of five tropical forage grass silages. Napier grass silage had a significantly higher (P<0.01) digestibility coefficient for crude protein than the other silages tested. However, the digestibility coefficients for dry matter and crude fiber were similar for napier, pangola and guinea grass silage. There were no significant differences among the silages in relation to TDN on dry matter basis. Napier grass silage had higher values than the other silages for digestible nutrientes, protein and crude fiber and also had the lowest nutritive ratio (1:23.57). Sorghum and guatemala grass silages were the only ones that produced weight gains in the animals during the experiment.