Effect of varying concentrate to fodder ratio on in Situ degradability of fibre in cattle Mesfin Dejene1,*, Kumar Ashok, Garg Nidhi, Saxena Prasoon Chand, Kumar Ripusudan Department of Animal Nutrition, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar 263 145, India. * E-mail: kumar_a47@rediffmail.com
1Present address: Sirinka Agricultural Research Centre, P.O. Box. 74, Woldia, Ethiopia Abstract Rumen degradability of neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and acid detergent fibre (ADF) of feeds containing different concentrate to sorghum fodder ratio was studied with the in situ nylon bag technique. The different fodder concentrate ratio samples were incubated in the rumen of 3 fistulated adult bullocks for 0, 3, 6, 9, 12,18, 24, 36, 48, 72 and 96 hours. The feeds tested were 0 g concentrate mixture + 5 g sorghum fodder (variety Rio) of stage-I (75–82 DAS) (T1), 0 g conc. mix. + 5 g sorghum fodder of stage-II (105–112 DAS) (T2), 0.75 g conc. mix. + 4.25 g sorghum fodder of stage-I (T3), 0.75 g conc. mix. + 4.25 g sorghum fodder of stage-II (T4), 1.5 g conc. mix. + 3.5 g sorghum fodder of stage-I (T5), 1.5 g conc. mix. + 3.5 g sorghum fodder of stage-II (T6), 2.0 g conc. mix. + 3.0 g sorghum fodder of stage-I (T7) and 2.0 g conc. mix. + 3.0 g sorghum fodder of stage-II (T8). The disappearance of NDF and ADF increased with the increase in concentrate to fodder ratio. Stage-I had higher NDF and ADF disappearance than stage-II in each concentrate to fodder combination. In all treatments, the disappearance of NDF was higher compared to the disappearance of ADF. The instantly soluble component (a), degradation constant (c) and effective degradability (ED) of NDF and ADF were higher in stage-I than stage-II fodder. The instantly soluble component (a) and ED of NDF and ADF increased with the increase in concentrate to fodder ratio. The degradation kinetics studies indicated that sorghum fodder harvested at earlier stage was superior to harvest at later stage of growth for ruminants and it can be further improved by supplementation of concentrate. Top Key words NDF disappearance, ADF disappearance, concentrate to fodder ratio, in situ degradibility. Top |