Effect of sheanut cake based complete diets on eating and rumination behaviour in murrah buffalo calves

Two complete diets, processed into mash were formulated using palm press fibre (20% and 15%) and chopped jowar straw (20% and 25%) as roughage source and sheanut cake (18.5% and 28%) along with locally available concentrate ingredients with roughage concentrate ratio of 40:60 and processed into mash (R II and R III). These two diets were compared with conventional ration (R I) consisting of chopped jowar straw, green jowar fodder and concentrate mixture fed separately to study their effect on eating and rumination behaviour in Murrah buffalo calves. Twelve Murrah buffalo calves were randomly allotted to these three diets and fed for a period of 180 days. Statistical analysis of eating and rumination behaviour indicated that rumination time, percent of time spent for rumination and chewing time were significantly higher, whereas resting time and percent of time spent for resting was lower on conventional diet when compared with complete diets in growing buffalo calves.