Soyabean is widely grown in the tropics, but it is agronomically suitable for only some areas and most production is used for human food or for monogastric diets. However, there are a large number of other high-yielding tropical grain legumes (eg. Lablab, Canavalia, Phaseolus, Vigna spp.) often known but little liked or used as human food, which have potential as animal feedstuffs. In common with soyabean most of these grain legumes contain anti-nutritional factors which have adverse effects on monogastric animals, and which means that these grain legumes cannot be used in monogastric diets without previous treatment. However, rumen fermentation can modify many anti-nutritional factors to forms less toxic to mammalian metabolism, and hence reduce the susceptibility of ruminants to many specific anti-nutritional factors. Thus, in general ruminants are likely to be less susceptible than monogastrics to the anti-nutritional factors in grain legumes. Much greater tolerance by ruminants than by monogastric of the anti-nutritional factors in Canavalia ensiformis seed has been demonstrated.
Author(s) Details:
Ismartoyo,
Department of Animal Husbandry, Hasanuddin University, Indonesia.
