Digestibility, intake behavior, and performance of sheep fed residues from fruit processing agro-industries

ABSTRAT The objective was to evaluate the consumption, digestibility and performance of the sheep with iso protein diets, with 75% of residues from fruit agro-industries (pineapple, acerola, passion fruit, and cupuassu) and a diet with tifton hay, and 25% of concentrate, in a totally randomized design. The participation of passion fruit residue on the diet provided the highest consumption levels of dry matter (1170.6g d -1 ) compared with the residues of pineapple (693.8g d -1 ), acerola (644.2g d -1 ), cupuassu (452.9g d -1 ) and tifton hay (962.7g d -1 ), which is related to their levels of digestibility (77.85, 63.14, 59.07, 61.68 and 71.83%, respectively). Such a result generated significant differences with emphasis on passion fruit residue regarding food inversion (8.30) and average daily weight gain (141.50g d -1 ), in spite of having the same conversion detected for tifton hay (13.2), it showed a higher average daily gain (75.6g d -1 ). The other residues showed overlapping effects, however, acerola residue showed the worst conversion level (51.4) and the lowest average daily gain (15.6g d -1 ), and this one showed no difference compared with cupuassu (23.0g d -1 ). The residues can be used as an alternative for sheep feeding.