**Chandra Sekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur - 208 002, India
Division of Animal Nutrition, Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar-243122, India
*Present address : Department of Feed and Fodder Technology, College of veterinary Science, Tirupati -517 502, India
Online published on 5 January, 2012.
Nine Murrah buffalo bulls (S-S-yyrs; 375; 375 kg) fitted with rumen cannutae were divided into 3 equal groups in a randomised block design and fed ammoniated wheat straw based complete diet (CD) containing either 1 % fish meal IFM, CD II)or % meat meal (MMM CD II) or 2% MM (CD III) in trial 1 and either 2% groundnut meal (GNM, CD IV) or 2% cottonseed meal (CSM, CD V) in trial 2. In sacco rumen degradability of ammoniated wheat straw, voluntary feed intake (VFI), digestibility of nutrients and rumen parameters were studied. In trial 1, CD II gave higher in sacco rumen degradability of treated straw, higher (P<0.05) digestibilities of DM and ADF than those observed on either CD I or CD III. The TCA precipatable-N (P<0.05) and bacterial protein in the rumen also increased on CD n. The ME values were significantly (P<0.01) different for CD I, II and III.
In trial 2, higher (P<0.05) in saccc NDF degradability of treated straw was obtained on CD I than those on CD IV or VFI The VFI was slso depressed do feeding CD IV and CDV by about 10% over CD I. However, the digestibility of nutrients among the complete diets did not differ significantly. ’CD IV also increased (P<0.05) the bacterial protein concentratioq in rumen liquor, even though the animals fed CD I had higher bacteria pool size. The DCP (%) values of CD I, CD IV and CD V weee 5.4, 6.0 and 5.7, while the ME values were 2.09, 2.13 and 2.11 MCal/kg DM respectively.
