Forage Preference, Voluntary Intake, and In Vivo Digestibility of Six Tropical Tree Leaves by Sheep in Semi-Arid Areas in Benin Republic (West Africa)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

To

The Editor

Sustainability`

Thanks for allowing me to review the manuscript entitled “Forage preference, voluntary intake, and in vivo digestibility of six tropical tree leaves by sheep in semi-arid areas in Benin Republic (West Africa)”. The authors investigated digestibility and preferred fodder species for increasing the productivity of animals. I read the manuscript thoroughly. The manuscript is very interesting for the scientific community of international readers. The authors have written it nicely and provided valuable information in this manuscript. I found some minor corrections on it. After incorporating these comments, the manuscript may be suitable for publication.

Comments:

1.Title

·         The title of the manuscript is very interesting to the readers.

2. Keywords

·         The scientific name in the keywords must be italics.

·         The keywords may be change as forage trees, nutritive value, Neutral Detergent Fiber etc

3.Introduction

·         The introduction of the manuscript needs to incorporate the recent study relevant to this study.

·         The author citaion must be include in scientific name when first appears.

4. Materals and methods

·         Study area map must be include.

·         Add some photographs during the feeding of animals.

5.Results

·         The results section of the manuscript is written very nicely.

6.    Discussion

·         The discussion of the manuscript must be improved by adding some new recent relevant references.

7. Conclusion

·         The conclusion of the study must be improved.

·         If possible kindly give some recommendations for the management of the study area.

 

I hope my submitted comments help in improving the manuscript.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer

Thank you for your comments

Please see the file attached

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

The results of this study have shown that the woody leaves can provide people and animals with an abundance of food. This paper also showed that the nutritional value of woody leaves depends on the type of trees used for food. The results confirmed an average protein content and significant amount of mineral elements. It is important to mention that well prepared woody leaves can be compared to hay in terms of nutritional value.

So, please consider the suggestion beloww, in order to improve quality of your Manuscript:

Line 36: Rewrite the first part of the sentence. Use "requirements for livestock" instead "needs of the livestock" or similar.

In the second part of the sentence, do not use "climate changes", remove this and use "specific climate conditions"

Line 74: The same comment as in Line 36 "specific climate conditions and land degradation"

Line 83-86: Please, indicate the reference You are referring to when citing data on climate conditions in the area where the research was conducted

Line 87: Please explain what does "the found plant species" mean

Author Response

Dear reviewer

Thank you for your comments

Please see the attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an interesting article about the potential use of tree tropical leaves in sheep diet, considering the voluntary intake and the in vivo digestibility.

Please, consider the following suggestion:

Introduction:

-please check lines 40 and 45. Do the numbers reported as superscripts refer to references?

Material and methods:

-please, could you explain why you decide to conduct the experiments for such a short period (10 and 14 days, respectively? Don't you think that a longer time is needed by the animals to adapt to the new feed source before the results are achieved?

Results:

-please, check the unit of measurement. Kilogram should be spelled with lowercase.

-please, check the legend of Table 1, and add the Hem equivalent. It is Hemicellulose?

Conclusion: 

-I think it is important to better explain whether you consider your results to be definitive or preliminary, and therefore if it is necessary to continue to do the studies (for example in relation to the growing performances of animals fed with differend tree leaves).

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Dear reviewer

Thank you for your comments

Please see the attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.docx