Effect of anti-nutritional factors as feed additives on enteric methane, blood serum indices and worm load in crossbred calves

Ruminants have the distinct advantage of being able to eat forages and graze on land that is not suitable for growing crops. During breakdown of feed in rumen, 2 to 12 per cent of the gross energy consumed is converted to enteric CH₄, which accounts for about 6 per cent of the world's anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Anti nutritional factor (ANF) plays a vital role in rumen manipulation. It helps in mitigation of methane production and improves the feed efficiency.

Twenty calves of 6-7 months old with an average body weight of 90.2±4.0 kg were distributed randomly into four dietary treatment groups. The calves of the control group (T0) were fed on a basal diet as per ICAR (2013) feeding standard. The basal diet of T1, T2 and T3 were supplemented with NLP, MOP, CO@ 2 per cent on DM basis, respectively. Blood serum and fecal samples were collected and analyzed on 30^th, 90^th and 120^th day of the experiment. The methane emission per animal was measured over fortnightly.

It was depicted that supplementation of ANFs as feed additives to the crossbred calves didn't not affect the blood serum indices but the worm load and methane emission in calves differ significantly (P<0.05).