APPARENT DIGESTIBILITY OF Brachiaria humidicola (RENDLE) SCHWEICKERDT HAY AFTER SEED HARVEST

Abstract

A trial to study the apparent digestibility of Brachiaria humidicola (Rendle) Schweickerdt, grass, was carried out at the Departamento de Zootecnia da Universidade Federal de Goiás. The seeds of B.humidicola have a good commercial value and the farmers utilized a grass of bad quality after mechanical harvest. Four adult lambs, castrated males, of unknown race, were used and placed in metabolical individual cages during 17 days, 7 for adaptation and 10 for collection period. The apparent digestibility of dry matter was 53.64% and ";in vitro"; 53.37%. On dry matter-basis the hay has 53.40% of TND value, a poor crude protein (3.03%) value with low coefficient of digestibility (11 .88%).