Nutrient Components and in vitro Digestibility of Treated and Untreated Date Palm Wastes with Mushroom (Pleurotus florida)

The current study aimed to evaluate date palm wastes (DPW) and treaded date palm wastes (TDPW) called “spent mushroom substrate” as alternative feeds for ruminants using chemical composition and in vitro gas production technique. Rumen liquor was obtained from three canulated goats fed on concentrate mixture and alfalfa hay. The gas production was recorded after 3, 6, 9, 12, 24, 48 and 72 h of incubation. The values of crude protein (CP), ether extract (EE), crude fiber (CF) and nitrogen free extract (NFE) in TDPW were higher than that in DPW. The extent of gas production at 72 h was 23.44 and 23.00 ml for DPW and TDPW, respectively. The values of potential degradability (a+b) were 23.39 and 22.94 ml and 0.092 and 0.094 for the rate of gas production (c) in DPW and TDPW, respectively. There were significant (p<0.05) differences between DPW and TDPW in Metabolizalbe energy (ME), net energy (NE), organic matter digestibility (OMD) and microbial protein (MP). There was no significant (p>0.05) difference between DPW and TDPW in short chain fatty acids (SCFA). It could be concluded that treatment of date palm wastes with mushroom improved the potential feeding value of the resultant substrate, and a good potential as feed resources for ruminants.