| The present study was conducted to evaluate the impacts of dietary supplementation of chromium yeast alone and in combination with antioxidants on growth, feed conversion and nitrogen retention in broilers during winter season. A total of 180, Cob-400 straight run broiler chicks at one day-old, were randomly distributed into four equal groups replicated three times with 15 birds per replicate. The treatments consisted of 4 experimental groups as follows: T 0 , T 1 , T 2 and T 3 . Chicks were fed corn-soya based broiler mash (basal diet) maintained as control (T 0 ), the basal diet supplemented with chromium (Cr)at 0.5 mg Cr/kg diet from chromium yeast (T 1 ), the basal diet + 0.5 mg Cr /kg diet from chromium yeast + 250 mg of ascorbic acid /kg of diet (T 2 ), and the basal diet + 0.5 mg Cr /kg diet from chromium yeast + 250 mg vitamin E /kg of diet (T 3 ). Body weight and feed consumption were recorded to evaluate the growth performance and feed conversion ratio (FCR). Nitrogen retention was observed by conducting metabolic trial during 6 th week. The climatic data revealed that there were huge variations in house air temperatures within a day. In house relative humidity ranged from 29.01% to 44.21% during the experimental period. The average weight gains were numerically higher and FCR values were lower in supplemented groups particularly in T 2 group than T 0 group. The significantly higher (p< 0.05) nitrogen retention values were recorded in T 2 group followed by T 1 than T 0 group. It was concluded that Cr in combination with ascorbic acid yielded better results in terms of performance in broilers, thus suggesting some synergetic action of both Cr and ascorbic acid that need to investigate further with specially designed projects.

Aim:The current in vitro study was carried out to determine the chemical composition and inclusion level of lime treated olive cake on acid detergent fiber (ADF) replacement basis in adult male goats.Materials and Methods:Crude olive cake was collected and evaluated for proximate composition and protein fractionation. It was treated with 6% lime and incubated for 1 week under room temperature in 2 kg sealed polythene bags and was evaluated for proximate composition after incubation. Different isonitrogenous complete diets containing 0-50% of lime treated olive cake on ADF replacement basis were formulated as per the requirement of adult male goats. In ADF replacement, fiber and concentrate sources were replaced by lime treated olive cake by replacing the 0-50% ADF percentage of the total 40% ADF value of complete feed. The formulated complete diets were tested for in vitro degradation parameters.Results:Treatment of olive cake with 6% slaked lime increased availability of cellulose and alleviated digestibility depression caused by high ether extract percentage. Organic matter, nitrogen free extract, ADF and neutral detergent fiber were significantly lowered by lime treatment of olive cake. The cornell net carbohydrate and protein system analysis showed that non-degradable protein represented by acid detergent insoluble nitrogen (ADIN) was 21.71% whereas the non-available protein represented by neutral detergent insoluble nitrogen (NDIN) was 38.86% in crude olive cake. The in vitro dry matter degradation (IVDMD) values were comparable at all replacement levels. However, a point of inflection was observed at 40% ADF replacement level, which was supported by truly degradable organic matter (TDOM), microbial biomass production (MBP), efficiency of MBP and partitioning factor values (PF).Conclusion:In our study, we concluded that there is comparable difference in composition of Indian olive cake when compared with European olive cake. The most important finding was that about 78% of nitrogen present in Indian olive cake is available to animal in contrary to that of European olive cake. We concluded from in vitro studies that Indian olive cake can be included in complete feed at 30% level (w/w; 40% ADF replacement) for feeding in small ruminants without compromising in vitro degradability of the feed.

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To study effect of feeding graded levels of apple pomace on performance of crossbred calves,90 days growth trial followed by 6 days metabolic trail was conducted on 16 female Jersey crossbred calves divided into four equal groups with control (T0) fed concentrate diet without apple pomace and experimental groups viz, T1, T2 and T3, where maize was replaced by 25%, 50% and 75% of apple pomace, respectively. There was no significant difference in dry matter intake, growth performance, feed conversion ratio and digestibility coefficients of CF, NFE, ADF and HC with inclusion of apple pomace in calf ration; however digestibility of DM, OM, CP, EE and NDF reduced significantly at higher inclusion level (75%). There was also no significant difference in nutritive value of the experimental diets with respect to %DCP and %TDN, ME, DE and NR. There was no significant difference in the mean haemato-biochemical values, however significant (P LESS THEN 0.05) effect of feeding apple pomace was observed on total serum proteins with lower values in animals of T3group as compared to control. Similarly non-significant differences were observed in ruminal pH, TVFA, total nitrogen, NH3-N, TCA-ppt. N and NPN values.

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