THE EFFECT OF FEEDING OIL PALM EMPTY FRUIT BUNCH ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF CATTLE

I.Mohamad Noor1*, S.A.Syed Hussein2 and M. Nurzillah1

The oil palm planted area in 2013 reached 5.23 million hectares including Sabah with 1.48 million hectares, Sarawak with 1.16 million hectares and Peninsular Malaysia accounted for 2.59 million hectares(1). Large amounts of oil palm biomass are generated by the palm oil industry, for example 5.2 million tonnes per annum of oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) in 2002(2). Many studies have been conducted on the use of palm oil wastes in animal feed as palm kernel expeller (PKE), palm oil sludge (POS), palm press fibre (PPF), oil palm fronds (OPF) and oil palm trunks (OPT) (3,4,5,6) as compared to oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB).