Effect of Steam Pressure, sodium Hydroxide, Urea and Hydrogen Peroxide Treatments on Digestibility, Nitrogen Balance and Nutritive Value in Sheep

Seven isonitrogenous (14.5±0.5% CP) complete rations were prepared by mixing 35 parts concentrate mixture (34.6% CP), 5 parts ground green fodder (16.8% CP) and 60 parts ground bagasse (D-l) or bagasse treated with steam pressure at 30 lb psi (D-3), 3% sodium hydroxide (D-4), 1.5% urea (D-5), urea fermentation (D-6) and alkaline hydrogen peroxide (D-7), Since all diets, except D-l, contained 6% molasses, a molassed bagasse control diet (D-2) was added to serve as a base line. These diets were offered to growing sheep in a 7 x 7 x 4 balanced incomplete block design. The daily DM intake (g) for the seven treatments was 622, 662, 673, 694, 648, 699 and 636, respectively, with a corresponding water intake (1/kg DMl/d) of 2.40, 2.45, 2.11, 2.84, 2.17, 2.09 and 2.31. The digestibility of DM and CP respectively, was 52.3, 59.1, 61.7, 62.1, 62.6, 59.8 and 59.3, and 54.7, 62.1, 64.9, 68.0, 64.5, 61.8 and 60.0. Although the N intake and faecal output differed insignificantly, the N-halance was significantly (P<0.05) affected when N-retention (% of N intake) was recorded to be 17.1 24.6 22.2 36.9 38.3 28.4 and 22.9. The corresponding BV of the feed-N was calculated to be 24.8 32.4 32.5 50.9 54.6 43.2 and 37.4 percent, recpectively for treatments D-l to D-7.

Simple addition of molasses (D-2) to native bagasse (D-l) improved the digestibiiity of OM and BV of N by 7.4 and 7.5 units. Steam pressure and alkaline hydrogen peroxide treatments could not show improvement over D-2 in terms of said parameters. Diets D-4, D-5 and D-6 gave promising improvement in nutritive values.