Effect of Cattle Genotype and Variable Feed Supply on Forage Intake and Digestibility

Abstract

An experiment was carried out to investigate whether a local breed of cattle is better adapted than European breed crosses to low quality feeds and to variations in their supply. Four Red Chittagong (RC) and four Holstein cross Sahiwal (Hx) cattle were used to compare the intake and digestibility of German grass (Echinocloa crusgalli) and rice straw with four regimes of feed supply. These were; a choice of German grass and rice straw each offered ad libitum on the same day (A); German grass and rice straw offered ad libitum on alternate days (B); rice straw offered ad libitum for 5 days followed by German grass ad libitum for 5 days (C); and German grass offered ad libitum for 5 days followed by rice straw ad libitum for 5 days (D). Each breed was offered the treatments in a 4×4 Latin Square design. The German grass intake and total dry matter intake per kg metabolic live weight were significantly higher for the Hx than for RC, but there were no significant effects of genotype on digestibility of nutrients or live weight. Treatment A had the highest proportion of German grass relative to rice straw in the total DM intake, and had the highest total DM intake and apparent digestibility of nutrients compared with treatments B, C and D. It was concluded that there was no significant evidence that the RG cattle were better adapted to a variable supply of low quality feed than Hx cattle, and that the variable feed supply reduced the ability of cattle to select a preferred diet and consequently nutrient intake was depressed.

Growth, carcass and meat quality characteristics of Small East African goats fed straw based diets

“…The variations are a result of the influence of many factors including the type/genotype of crop used and treatment conditions (Habib et al, 1998;Sirohi and Rai, 1998). In addition, the efficiency to digest poor-quality roughages has been shown to depend on species of the animal (Hadjipanayiotou et al, 1993) and breed of animal within species (Ørskov, 1998;Habib et al, 2008).…”

Growth, carcass yield and meat quality attributes of Red Maasai sheep fed wheat straw-based diets

“…However, earlier studies (Trach 2000) reported that a combination of urea (CO (NH 2 ) 2 ) and lime (CaO/Ca (OH) 2 ) for chemical treatment of straw is more economically feasible although the effects of forage alkali treatments on animal performance are often variable due to the variation in the type/genotype of crop used and treatment conditions (Nurfeta et al 2009). In addition, the efficiency at which low-quality roughages are digested depends on species of the animal (Li et al 2008) and breed of animal within species (Habib et al 2008). There is limited information on performance of the indigenous sheep in Tanzania in terms of growth rate, carcass characteristics and meat quality when raised on upgraded crop residues.…”

Ranking of Four Types Fodder as Sole Diet Considering Biological Characteristics and Growth of Local Growing Bulls

“…On the other hand, in this experiment, the yield of German grass was highest (181 ton/h/Y; fresh) and DM, CP & OM digestibility was mostly similar to maize silage (64 Vs 67, 64 Vs 60 & 64 Vs 70, respectively) with significantly highest average LWG in comparison to maize (107 Vs 64 g/d, respectively). In another findings, [24] also got positive response by fedding German grass to RCC Cattle in terms of intake, digestibility or average daily live weight gain.…”