Ammoniated sugarcane bagasse associated with forage palm as a replacement for corn in diets for confined lambs

The objective of this study was to evaluate the association of ammoniated sugarcane bagasse with forage palm replacing corn in diets for confined sheep. Eight Santa Inês crossbred lambs, males, not castrated, with an initial average body weight of 26.7 kg, were distributed in a 4 × 4 double Latin square design, with four levels of replacement of corn with palm (0, 333, 666 and 1000 g/kg) and four collection periods of 21 days each, with 17 days for adaptation to the diets and 4 days for data collection in each period. A ratio of 300 g/kg of roughage and 700 g/kg of concentrate was used, formulated for gains of 200 g/day. The replacing corn with palm did not influence dry matter intake (1134.9 g/day), digestibility of crude protein (627 g/kg) and neutral detergent fiber (508 g/kg), in feeding efficiency of dry matter (253.2 g/hour), nitrogen balance (15.8 g/day) and microbial protein synthesis (43.4 g/day) of animals, in addition to increasing microbial efficiency (81.3 g) and reduce water intake (0.1 L/day), when there was total replacement of corn by palm. Forage palm can replace corn by up to 100% in lambs diets, without interfering with the animals' intake or efficiency in using these foods.