Evaluation of Cotton Seed Cake or Soybean Meal as Home-Made Concentrate Mixture for Dairy Cows from Farmers’ Perspective

Eight lactating dairy cows were divided into two groups i.e. Cotton Seed Cake (CSC) Group and Soybean Meal (SBM) Group of four animals in each. Randomly, animals of the CSC and SBM groups were individually offered daily 4 kg CMM+CSC (concentrate mixture containing maize grain 70 and CSC 30 parts by weight) and CMM+SBM (containing maize grain 70 and SBM 30 parts by weight) respectively along with limited (5 kg) fresh green fodder and ad lib. jowar straw for 90 days. To make both the rations isonitrogenous, extra 1.2 kg CSC was offered to the animals of the CSC group. The dry matter (DM) intake (kg/day) per 100 kg body weight (BW) was similar between the groups (2.76 vs 2.78). The roughage: concentrate ratio in CSC group (47.89: 53.11) was lower than the SBM group (57.62: 42.39). The milk yield (5.36 vs 5.33 lit/day; 5.52 vs 5.50 kg/day) and 4% fat corrected milk (FCM) yield (5.77 vs 5.76 kg/day) of the animals of the CSC group was similar (P>0.05) to the animals of SBM group. Further, there were no differences (P>0.05) on the milk compositions between the animals of the groups. The cost () of the feed of CSC group (130.48/day) was higher than the SBM group (120.94/day). The cost of milk was similar in both the groups based on the 4% FCM yield. There was higher net loss of 9.24 per animal per day due to feeding of mixture of maize grain and CSC as home-made concentrate mixture on dairy cows. It was concluded that exclusive feeding of mixture of maize grain and cotton seed cake as home-made concentrate mixture to dairy animals was not a profitable venture in comparison to of mixture of maize grain and soybean meal.