Nutritional characterization and use of cane sugar and processed waste in diets for sheep.

The aim of this study was to determine the nutritional composition and in vitro digestibility of whole sugar cane without burning, burning crop residues and processed through grinding (physical), fermentation (biological) and inclusion of additives (chemical). A completely randomized design with factorial arrangement of treatments 2 x 3 with three replications was used. The factors were the type of cane (whole and residues) and the three processes, physical, biological and chemical. To evaluate the animal response 21 weaned male Pelibuey lambs were used, with an average body weight of 20,24 ± 3,17 kg confined selected based diets full cane without burning, field burning and waste burned in integrated process. The results showed that the entire process to the types of cane increased nutritional value, proximate analysis and cell wall fractions of crop residues and whole cane were improved by grinding, fermentation and additives. The content of CP increased (P<0,05) from 2,6 to 13,2 % in the residues and 1,5 to 10,9 % in the entire cane. In vitro DM digestibility increased (P<0,05) with only 68,5 % for grinding cane and 75,3 % in residues, contrary to expectations, in grounded and fermented cane treatments showed an IVD of DM of 45,46 % and the integral process of 53,57 % vs 53,08 % and values of 52,53 % for field residues. The response of Pelibuey lambs in weight gain, consumption and feed conversion were behaved the same with cane-based diets entire unburned, burned and burned waste ground, fermented and additives. It is concluded that the sugarcane fields and residues ground, fermented and additives improve their nutritional value, but do not improve animal performance.