Utilization of Moringa oleifera in animal nutrition

Dear colleagues

This week we have chosen an article summarizing the benefits of Moringa olefiera in ruminant nutrition.

Moringa could be considered a multipurpose tropical tree used in agriculture, food and feed because of its wide range of benefits.

In relation to animal feed moringa is not only a cheap source of protein, vitamin A, B and C, and minerals such as iron. In addition, moringa is a good source of biogenic molecules such as pterygospermine, an interesting antimicrobial against P.aeroginosa or S.Aureus, and antioxidant molecules such as the flavonoids kaempferol or quercetin, which help animals to cope with oxidative stress.

But Moringa has also several anti-nutritional factors that could affect the productivity of monogastric animals, so without any special treatment it should be carefully fed to pigs and poultry.

In summary, I believe that Moringa could be a functional and nutritional ingredient with a lot of potential in animal feed, but more research is needed, especially related to methods to reduce antinutritional molecules in order to increase the dosage in monogastric animals.

Enjoy the article.

Photography: Venkatx5, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons