my 1st national paper *notreallymine

Feeding Values of Rice Straw as Basal Diet Supplemented with Different Levels of Tree Legumes on Ongole Cross Cow 

The aim of this experiment is to determine the amount of rice straw and tree legumes required to maintain the weight of a mature, non-lactating, non-pregnant Ongole Cross cow. To achieve this goal an examination of the feeding value of rice straw (Oryza sativa) supplemented with increasing levels of tree legumes on Ongole Cross cows was done Thirty two Ongole Cross cows (318 ± 12 kg (SEM)) were allocated to four levels of tree legumes (mixture of Gliricidia sepium and Leucaena leucochephala, 1:1) in a randomized block design, with eight replicates (animals) per treatment. Cows were offered rice straw ad libitum with four level of tree legumes (0, 2.5, 5, and 10 g dry matter (DM)/kg body weight (BW)/day (d). The experiment was 23 weeks in duration, consisting of a 2 weeks preliminary period for adaptation to diets and 21 weeks experimental period for the measurement of feed intake for estimation of metabolisable energy intake (MEI), crude protein intake (CPI) and estimation of metabolisable energy retention (MER). The organic matter digestibility (OMD) was measured over 7 consecutive days on 3 separate occasions, during weeks 4, 11 and 19 of the experimental period. The results demonstrated that level of tree legume supplementation on rice straw did not affect significantly (P>0.05) OMD, MEI and MER, which were averaged 54.31%, 0.12 MJ/kg BW/d, 1.43 g/kg BW/d, respectively. Addition of tree legume to rice straw on the other hand increased significantly CPI of Ongole Cross cow. Cows without tree legume supplementation showed the lowest CPI (1.03 g/kg BW/d) while cows with supplementation 10 g DM/kg BW/d had highest CPI (1.82 g/kg BW/d). The conclusion is addition level of tree legumes until 10 g DM/kg BW/d in the rice straw as basal diet to maintain Ongole Cross cow can increase crude protein intake and increased supplementation would indicate increased organic matter digestibility, estimation of metabolizable energy intake and the retention.

Key words: rice straw, tree legums, diet quality and Ongole Cross cows