Daily Body Weight Gain of Bali Cattle Fed with Leucaena Leucocephala as the Main Ration in West Timor, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

Abstract

Leucaena leucoephala has long been used in Amarasi sub-district of Kupang in East Nusa Tenggara as the main high quality fodder for intensive cattle feeding in pens. However, the spread of the technology to the ajacent areas in the island is slow. Two villages were selected for the study of leucaena based feeding in the existing and non-existing (Ponain and Oebola Dalam) to observe on the daily weight gain of Timor Bali cattle and the uptake of the technology by new farmers. Oebola-Dalam has just started planting psyllid tolerance leucaena in 2012 and initiated an intensive cattle feeding in 2014. The experiment consisted of comparing the daily weight gain of cattle on leucaena based feeding at the sites. About 18 feeder cattle in Ponain and 30 feeder cattle in Oebola Dalam with average initial body weight of 200 kg were included in the study during the months of January to November 2014. In general cattle were fed ad-lib mainly with the leaf of leucaena. Monthly cattle weighing was conducted accordingly. The results indicated that average daily cattle weight gain in Ponain (0,5 kg/hd/day) was higher than at Oebola Dalam village (< 0,5 kg/hd/day). The best daily weight gain in both sites may reach up to 1 kg/hd/day, while the worst animals lost weight during the study. The study has demonstrated that the provision of suf cient leucaena plants as sources of high quality feed and good knowledge of farmers in cattle feeding resulted in better cattle weight gain and thus encourage the uptake of the technology.