Animal Nutrition Division, Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar-243 122, India.
Online published on 21 January, 2012.
Nutritional evaluation of six cultivated fodders, viz., green lucerne (Medicago sativa), green berseem (Trifolium alexandrinum), green maize (Zea mays), oal (Avena sativa) hay, green sweet sudan (Sorghum sudanense) and green baru (Sorghum halepense) (Johnson) grass was made by carrying out digestion trials on 5 empty brood mares. The mean voluntary dry matter intake (VDI) on ad lib feeding of above mentioned fodders was 2.29±0.01, 1.77± 0.02, 2.05±0.04, 2.09±0.02, 2.16±0.09 and 2.18±0.02 kg per 100 kg body weight respectively. The digestibility of different nutrients was significantly affected by the CP and CF content in the fodders. The mean DCP (%), TDN (%) and DE (Mcal/kg) contents on DM basis were 14.47, 53.41, and 2.25; 16.75, 58.55 and 2.42; 5.94, 58.75 and 2.38; 5.64, 53.55 and 2.18; 4.71, 40.14 and 1.66; and 5.36, 45.48 and 1.93 respectively for the above mentioned fodders, each of which supplied higher DCP than the maintenance requirement. The water intake was influenced by season, the DM content and protein levels in fodders and ranged from 4.62 to 8.36 litres per kg VDI.
