The research was carried out at the University of Maiduguri Livestock Teaching and Research farm to produce dry feed formulation using locally available materials such as maize bran, wheat bran, cowpea husk as energy sources; cotton seed cake, poultry litter, acacia dried pods, groundnut haulms, urea fertilizer as protein sources, while salt and bone meal, served as sources of mineral .Six 6) different feed formulations, F1,F2,F3,F4,F5 and F6 were formulated using the locally available feed ingredients . The formulated diets were subjected to rumen degradability study for the following hours: 6, 12,18,24,36,48 and 72. The results of proximate analysis of formulations showed that the dry matter content recorded varied from 94.7% to 91.2%. The corresponding crude protein content ranged from 12.43% to 6.56% and crude fibre varied from 27.5% to 21.0% for formulations F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, and F6 respectively for formulations F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, and F6 respectively . The rumen degradation of the formulations (F1 to F6) showed that they are significantly different (P<0.05) from each other with more than 50% of the formulated diets degraded at 48 hours. Therefore formulations F1 and F6, are recommended since production should be targeted towards gaining live weight at early stage thus increasing the quality of the animal product example carcass weight, milk yields etc. In this experiment compositions of the formulation (F1, to F6) have effect on the extent to which these feeds are degraded in rumen when fed to the animal. 1423902382.php
DEVELOPMENT OF TOTAL MIXED RATIONS FOR RUMINANTS AND THEIR RUMEN DEGRADATION CHARACTERISTICS IN A SEMI ARID ENVIRONMENT OF NIGERIA
Date : 2015-04-21 Volume : 7