author(s)
Manju Lata and BC Mondal

abstract
Agriculture including the livestock as an integral component plays an important role in Indian economy. The total livestock population is 535.78 million in the country reflected an increase of 4.6% over livestock census 2012. Latest estimate on demand-supply gap in fodder availability shows a net deficit of 30.65% green fodder and 11.85% dry crop residues in year 2020 (IGFRI Vision, 2050) ^[23]. In hills, fodder trees, shrubs and grazing in the forests are the main sources for the livestock feed including use of agricultural residue (Singh and Sundriyal, 2009) ^[41]. Tree leaves are generally rich in proteins and minerals particularly calcium and phosphorus (Gaikwad et al., 2017) ^[20]. Bakshi and Wadhwa, (2007) ^[7] reported that voluntary dry matter intake (kg/d) was significantly (P<0.05) higher by bucks fed leaves of Morus alba, than for all leaves. Asparagus racemosus roots and Moringa oleifera leaves can be supplemented in the diet of lactating cow to enhance the milk production of animal without any adverse effect on health of animal (Mishra,2008) ^[29]. Supplementation with Leucaena leucocephala and Moringa oleifera leaves during the dry season had a positive effect on the growth rate and reproductive performance of goats (Mataveia et al., 2019) ^[27]. Feeding of Terminalia arjuna leaves fed group exhibited improved total gain in weight and growth rate in Surti goat kids (Patel et al., 2017) ^[33]. On the basis of chemical composition, digestibility of nutrients and efficiency of utilization of nutrients, tree leaves proved to be excellent feedstuffs especially for small ruminants animals and provide potential feeding of livestock occur in long dry seasons, when there is insufficient plant biomass carried over from the wet season to support domestic livestock population.