Background

Legume tree browses are increasingly being used for livestock feeding by smallholder dairy farmers. Leaves from the calliandra tree are especially important in the eastern province of Kenya but the amounts that farmers have available are generally low and often only available intermittently. Farmers are therefore faced with the question of whether to feed small quantities daily over an extended period, e.g. throughout lactation, or to use alternative feeding patterns such as providing larger amounts at particular points, e.g. early in lactation. Another question that can be asked is what effect does fluctuating dietary feed supplies from fodder trees have on milk production?

These different questions are investigated in this case study. Dairy goats were used in a trial at Naivasha in Kenya's Rift Valley to investigate the effect of pattern of feeding on efficiency of utilisation of limited amounts of feed. The experiment examined different patterns of feeding of fixed amounts of calliandra as a supplement to basal forage of average quality.