Comparative Evaluation Of Dry Brewer Grain, Palm Kernel Cake, And Wheat Offal With Conventional Additives, Sucrose And Maize, In The Ensiling Process Using Water Hyacinth As Forage

Abstract

Silage additives are natural or industrial products that are often added to forages to improve or alter fermentation, reduce fermentation losses, promote the growth of lactic acid bacteria and improve the stability of the silage. Concern in added cost as a result of conventional additives in the ensiling process has necessitated a need for alternative cheap sources. .Hence, three relatively cheap and readily available agro-industrial additives, wheat offal (WO), brewer dry grain (BDG) and palm kernel cake (PKC) were tested with two conventional additives, sucrose (S) and cracked maize grains (CM), for their ability to properly ferment and impart high nutritional qualities to ensiled water hyacinth (WH). Thus WH, a prolific plant with a high biomass yield was ensiled with each of the named additive in turn. From these, the following treatment silages were prepared: WHS, WHCM, WHWO, WHBDG and WHPKC. After 42 days ensiling period, quality and chemical composition were assessed. Results indicated positive physical attributes in colour, texture and odour in all experimental silages. Crude protein for WHBDG (23.25 %) and WHPKC (20.10 %) were higher (p < 0.05) than those of WHS, WHCM and WHWO. For the fibre detergent fractions, the NDF, ADF and ADL followed similar trend. The dry matter (%) of the silages ranged from 11.34 (WHS) to 22.39 (WHBDG). The pH and temperature (˚Ϲ) were not significantly different (p > 0.05) ranging respectively from 2.8 to 3.45 and 27.5 to 28.5. Findings indicated that all tested additives compared favourably with the controls; WO performed best; BDG and PKC performed no less than the conventional S and CM additives. This observation is suggestive that WO, BDG and PKC can replace the conventional additives, sucrose and cracked maize in an ensiling process.