SUSHIL KUMAR* AND VIVEK SAHARAN
Department of Animal Nutrition
Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, Hisar-125004 (Haryana), India *(e-mail : chahar53@gmail.com)
(Received : 10 December 2023; Accepted : 26 December 2023)
SUMMARY
An experiment was conducted to assess the feeding value of wheat straw and rice straw in the growing Murrah buffalo calves. Eighteen weaned calves of age 14.50±0.86 months and average live body weight of 142.67±5.01 kg were divided into three groups viz. T1 (control), T2 & T3 of six animals each. Calves were fed experimental rations for a period of four months as per ICAR (2013) feeding standard. Group T1 was fed wheat straw-based control ration while T2 and T3 calves were fed non-basmati rice straw and urea-molasses treated non-basmati rice straw-based ration, respectively. Oats and berseem mix was used as green fodder while concentrate mixture comprised of maize (37.0 parts), wheat (6.0), barley (12.0 parts), GNC (18.0 parts), mustard cake (18.0 parts), soybean meal (6.0 parts) mineral mixture (2 parts) and common salt (1 part). Average daily gain (ADG) was significantly higher in urea-molasses treat non-basmati rice straw fed calves (556.94g) as compared to wheat (455.56g) or untreated rice straw fed calves (413.88g). Relative increase in body height of the T3 calves was higher than T1 (p>0.05) and T2 (p<0.05). Average feed intake of the overall experimental period (Table 3) was significantly (p<0.05) higher (7.93%) in T3 than T1. While, average feed intake of group T2 was significantly (p<0.05) lower (3.26%) as compared to T1. DMI as percent of BW was similar among all the treatment groups and varied from 2.53% in T2 to 2.64% in T3. DCPI and TDNI was significantly (p<0.05) higher in T3 group as compared to T1 and T2. Urea-molasses treatment of non-basmati rice straw improved the digestibility of nutrient viz. DM, CP, CF, OM, NDF and ADF, significantly (p<0.05). Serum biochemical parameters remained similar among groups. Net saving per kg gain was highest in T3. It was concluded that untreated non-basmati rice straw is poorly utilized in comparison to wheat straw, but urea-molasses treatment of non-basmati rice straw improves its feeding value significantly for the growing buffalo calves.
Key words: Buffalo calves, murrah, non-basmati rice straw, wheat straw