Merit of Gleditsia triacanthos pods in animal feeding Chemical composition and nutritional evaluation

A composite sample (1 kg) of Gleditsia triacanthos (GT) pods was obtained in November from five selected trees, in the south of Portugal. The nutritive value was evaluated using rams in metabolic cages. Dry matter degradability (DMdeg) was assessed by the nylon bag technique, using cannulated rams. Morphological composition was assessed by splitting the pods into seed and tegument. Pods length and width varied from 25.3 to 56.8 and 3.8 to 5.3 cm, respectively. Tegument was largely dominant, representing 880 g kg(-1) pod dry matter. The pods showed values for crude protein, acid detergent fibre (ADF), acid detergent lignin (ADL) and condensed tannins (CT) of 70, 231, 112 and 54 g kg(-1) DM, respectively. Neutral detergent fibre (NDF; 310 g kg(-1) DM) and sugars (292 g kg(-1) DM) were the major components of pod dry matter. Pod dry matter digestibility (DMD) and effective dry matter degradability were approximately 0.607 and 0.57 at a passage rate of 0.050 h(-1), respectively. The voluntary intake of the G. triacanthos pods by sheep increased until reaching a top level of about 1 kg DM per day, maintaining that level afterwards. The animals ate the pods avidly, choosing them in the diets. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.