Qualitative Assessment of Secondary Metabolites and In vitro Gas Production of Ficus species

Abstract

Five different species of Ficus leaves (FL) were assessed for their chemical compositions and presence of
secondary metabolites. Residues from the extracted and unextracted FL were further subjected to in vitro gas
production to evaluate the effect of secondary metabolites on gas production, Metabolisable Energy (ME),
Organic Matter Digestibility (OMD), Short Chain Fatty Acids (SCFA) and Methane (CH ). Crude protein for 4
the unextracted FL ranged from 9.41% (F. benjamina) to 14.4% (F. abutilifolia) while the extracted FL varied
from 10.8 to 15.8%. All the FL contained condensed tannin and saponin. Removal of secondary metabolites
enhanced fermentation in extracted FLas against the unextracted FLas depicted on gas volume. The estimated
values of ME, OMD, SCFA and CH of all the extracted FL were not significantly different (p>0.05). 4
Significant (p<0.05) differences were observed among the values of unextracted FLfor ME, OMD and SCFA.
Highest values was observed in unextracted F.polita (3.66MJKg/DM, 26.18% and 0.12µmol, respectively) but
lowest in F.vogeli (3.00MJ/Kg DM, 21.58% and 0.03µmol, respectively).The results from this study suggest
that Ficus leaves has the potential to serve as feed resource of by-pass protein and for control of methanogens in
small ruminants