Grass Productivity and Nangka Banana's Peels (Musa paradisiaca L) Palatability as Additional Feed for Timor Deers (Cervus timorensis de Blainville) in Captivity.

Abstract

Feed is the most important factors which determines the success of the captive deer management. The availability of forage is important for deer in captivity. For ensuring the stock of grass, it should be calculated the grass productivity and the carrying capacity. In captive, The productivity of forage is important to support the daily need of deers. On the other side the availability of concentrate feed which is palatable is important to support the protein reguirement of timor deers. The objective of the research is to measure productivity of grass and the carrying capacity of the site and to know the palatability of banana peels as additional feed for timor deer. Five grass species were consumed by the deers in captive site as follows: Axonophus compresus (0,87), Imperata cylindrica (0,79), Andropogon acicularus (0,71), Cynodon dactylon (0,62) and Cyperus rotundus (0,29). According to the palatability level, the grass productivity during rainy seasons is 111,10 kg/ha/day and 55,50 kg/ha/day during dry seasons. The carrying capacity during rainy seasons is 21,3 deers/ha and 10,6 deers/ha in the dry seasons. It means that there were insufficient of food in both seasons. So that it is necesary to supply additional feed. A randomized block design was implemented for this experiment. The statistical analisys shows that giving additional feed with banana peels ingredient through F test gives significant affect (P<0,05) againts its palatability index. Additional feed with banana peels ingredient has higher palatability index (T1, T2, T3) compared to additional feed without banana peels ingridient (T0) with significant differences (P>0,05). However, the palatability index is decreasing as the use of banana peels ingridient increased (T2 and T3).