Supplementation of Dragon Fruit Peel Waste (Hylocereus Polyrhizus) in Goat Ration on Digestibility and Fermentability in Vitro

This study aims to evaluate the effect of adding dragon fruit peel (Hylocereus polyrhizus) to goat rations on digestibility and fermentability in vitro. Dragon fruit peel is known to contain antioxidants and nutrients that can improve the quality of animal feed. This study used a completely randomized design (CRD) consisting of 5 treatments and 6 replicates with the addition of different dragon fruit peel (R0 or control) rations without the addition of dragon peel, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20%. The observed variables include dry matter digestibility, organic matter digestibility, total volatile fatty acid production, and ammonia (NH3) production. The results of variance analysis (ANOVA) showed that dragon fruit peel supplementation can significantly increase digestibility and fermentability in vitro. The treatment with the addition of 20% dragon fruit peel (R4) showed the highest performance of DMD of 71.55%, OMD of 81.61% and total VFA production of 195.16 mM while in the production of ammonia (NH3) the treatment with the addition of 10% dragon fruit peel (R2) showed the highest performance with the production value of NH3 as 10.14 mM. This study concluded that supplementation of dragon fruit peel in goat rations can increase the digestibility and fermentability of feed in vitro, as well as provide an efficient and environmentally friendly feed alternative.