Study of Carcass Characteristics of Goats Fed Rice Straw Supplemented with Moringa (Moringa oleifera Lam.) Foliage

The study was conducted to investigate the effects of different dietary levels of Moringa foliage on the growth performance, and carcass quality of Black Bengal goats. Thirty buckling of 6 to 8 months of age with an average initial live weight (LW) of 8.07 (±0.87) kg were allocated into five different dietary groups having six in each group for 105 days. Keeping molasses treated rice straw ad libitum as sole diet, 70% of dietary dry matter (DM) requirement was supplied with a conventional concentrate which was replaced with Moringa foliage in treatment diets at the rate of 25, 50, 75 and 100%, respectively. Consequently, Moringa foliage represented 17.8, 35.6, 52.9 and 67.2% of total dietary DM intake or 0.85, 1.7, 2.5 and 3.4% of LW of goats in treatment diets which did not affect the daily gain, DM intake and digestibility (P>0.05) significantly. The dietary DM intake and LW gain ranged from 4.6 to 4.8% of average LW and 67.3 to 79.3 g/d. The slaughter weight and dressing percentage, ranging from 15.0 to 15.6 kg and 51.9 to 52.5, did not vary significantly (P>0.05). The lean to fat ratio in carcass was 15.0 and 11.8 when diet contained 52.9 and 67.2% Moringa foliage, respectively which were significantly (P<0.05) higher than other diets. It was concluded that Moringa foliage may be included to the diet of goat up to 67.2% or 3.4% of LW which will produce more lean than fat without affecting dietary intake and daily gain