Nutrient intake, digestibility and performance of Gaddi kids supplemented with tea seed or tea seed saponin extract

Objective: An experiment was conducted to determine the nutrient intake, digestibility, microbial protein synthesis, haemato-biochemical attributes, immune response and growth performance of Gaddi kids fed with oat fodder based basal diet supplemented with either tea seed or tea seed saponin (TSS) extract. Methods: Eighteen male kids, 7.03 +/- 0.16 months of age and 19.72 +/- 0.64 kg body weight, were distributed into three groups, T-0 (control), T-1, and T-2, consisting of 6 animals each in a completely randomized design. The kids were fed a basal diet consisting of concentrate mixture and oat fodder (50: 50). Animals in group III (T-2) were supplemented with TSS at 0.4% of dry matter intake (DMI), and group II (T-1) were supplemented with tea seed at 2.6% of DMI to provide equivalent dose of TSS as in T-2. Two metabolism trials were conducted, 1st after 21 days and 2nd after 90 days of feeding to evaluate the short term and long term effects of supplementation. Results: The tea seed (T-1) or TSS (T-2) supplementation did not affect DMI as well as the digestibility of dry matter, organic matter, crude protein, neutral detergent fibre, and acid detergent fibre. Nutritive value of diet and plane of nutrition were also comparable for both the periods. However, the average daily gain and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were improved (p<0.05) for T-1 and T-2 as compared to T-0. The microbial protein supply was also higher (p<0.05) for T-1 and T-2 for both the periods. There was no effect of supplementation on most blood parameters. However, the triglyceride and low density lipoprotein cholesterol levels decreased (p<0.05) and high density lipoprotein-cholesterol level increased (p<0.05) in T-2 as compared with T-0 and T-1. Supplementation also did not affect the cell mediated and humoral immune response in goats. Conclusion: Tea seed at 2.6% of DMI and TSS at 0.4% DMI can be fed to Gaddi goats to improve growth rate, FCR and microbial protein synthesis.