*Central Institute for Research on Goats, P O Farah-281122, Mathura (U.P)
**Department of Animal Nutrition, College of Veterinary Science, Rajendranagar , Hyderabad-500 030, A.P.
Department of Animal Nutrition, College of Veterinary Science, Andhra Pradesh hgricultural University, Tirupati-517 502, India
Online published on 29 December, 2011.
Forest grass hays of Nendra (Sehima nervosum) and spear (Heteropopon contortus) and crop residues such as straws of sunflower, jowar and cotton, groundnut hulls, bagasse and maize stover were evaluated for their nutritional quality. There was wide variation in the chemical composition of different roughage sources. The CP content ranged from 1.13–10.40%, NDF from 58.89 tt 91.67%, ADF from 32.24 to 73,07% and cellwlose from 22.99 to 63.31% on DM basis. Lower level of cell-wall fractions led to higher in vitro DM digestibiiity of 40.59% for maize stover with goat rumen liquor.
In sacco DM disappearance was higher (P<0.01) for maize stover at all incubation periods as compared to other crop residues. It was further evident that the rate of degradation of groundnut hulls and cotton straw was low. The soluble DM fraction ‘a’ was highest for sunflower straw (22.50%) followed by maize ssover (20.25%). The insoluble but degradable fraction (b) was highest for maize stover (46.50%) followed by spear grass (31.87%) and nendra grass (28.15%) hays. Among the several crop residues tested, maize stover had highest effective degradable dry matter (EDDM) of 37.09% followed by 31.19% for sunflower straw. With lowest EDDM values of 5,51 and 6.84% respectively, groundnut hulls and cotton straw were ranked as poor roughage sources for direct feeding to goats.
