Assessment of the nutritive value of bovine Iiquor and urea treated corn-straw and corn-cobs as feed for the West African Dwarf sheep and goats

Abstract

Corn-straw (CS) and corn-cob (CC) were treated with bovine liquor (BL) to enhance their nutritive values. Eight preparations consisting of CC, CS, CC + BL, CS + BL, CC + urea, CS+ urea, CC+ BL+urea and CS + BL + urea were made to ferment for five days under anaerobic condition. The final products were assessed for their chemical composition, in vitro gas production and feed preference by sheep and goats. Crude protein contents in CC and CS significantly (P <0.05) increased from 3.5% and 2.7% to 8.6% and 3.4% respectively without urea but addition of urea increased the contents to 14.6% and 6.8% respectively. Crude fibre, neutral detergent fibre, acid detergent fibre, acid detergent lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose of the treated CS and CC were significantly (P < 0.05) reduced. Similar trends were observed for gas production characteristics as the potentially degradable fraction ‘b’ and the potential degradability ‘a + b’ of treated straw and cobs were better (P < 0.05) than the untreated. The rate ‘c’ of gas production was slower for the treated than the untreated CC and CS. Both sheep and goats separately preferred the treated CC and CS to the untreated after three days and subsequent days of consumption. Since the bovine liquor showed the tendency of enhancing the nutrient contents of corn-cobs and corn-straw and that small ruminant preferred the treated materials than the untreated, sheep and goats can be sustained during the dry season.