ABSTRACT
Capparis plants are not the preferred food choice of goats (Garcia et al. 2008), and this owes to the presence of the secondary metabolites, which are more concentrated when the plants grow in harsh desert conditions (Figures 2.1 and 2.2), making such plants relied on in partially barren areas (e.g., those of northeast Brazil) undesirable from the standpoint of goat nutrition (Costa et al. 2011) and even potentially poisonous to the animal when, say, leaves from C. tomentosa are included as a forced part of a ruminant’s regular diet, causing weakness of the hind limbs, staggering, and swaying (Ahmed et al. 1981). In Nubian goats, feeding of C. tomentosa leaves resulted in inappetence, locomotor disturbances, paresis (especially of the hind limbs), and recumbency. Associated lesions comprised perineuronal vacuolation in the gray matter of the spinal cord at the sacral region, centrilobular hepatocellular necrosis, degeneration of the renal proximal convoluted and collecting tubules, serous atrophy of the cardiac fat and renal pelvis, and straw-colored fluid in serious cavities. Later, anemia developed, and the results of kidney and liver function tests correlated with clinical abnormalities and pathologic changes (Ahmed et al. 1993).
