DETECTION OF PALATABILITY PROPERTIES OF DEER (CERVUS TIMORENSIS) AGAINST ALTERNATIVE FEED

The level of deer productivity is influenced by several factors, namely the feed which has sufficient nutrient availability. The purpose of this study was to determine the nature of the meal as measured by the level of palatability to the introduction of alternative feeds namely feed fermentation from several forages and agricultural wastes. The method used in this study is to provide silage feed including silage of king grass, gamal, and banana stems. The design used was a completely randomized design with 3 treatments and 3 replications. Palatability analysis using Manly's Alpha showed that deer (Cervus timorensis) response to alternative feed was positive and adaptive to treated feed fermentation. Analysis of variance showed that from the three treatments (P1, P2 and P3) there was no significant effect (P <0.05) on the amount of daily consumption and feed conversion value, but overall the P3 feed conversion rate was better compared to the others. The conclusion of this study is that alternative feeding on CervusTimorensis deer in captivity can be given with regard to feed balance such as silage because it satisfies the palatability properties.