Nutritive value of barnyard, brown top and finger millet strawbased diets in lactating dairy cattle

D  RAKESH; T M  PRABHU; B C  UMASHANKAR; T S  SUKANYA; G ANAND  MANEGAR; A P MALLIKARJUN  GOWDA; K T  POORNACHANDRA

doi:10.56093/ijans.v96i2.173137

Authors

D RAKESH Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University Regional Campus, Bengaluru 560 024 India
T M PRABHU Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University Regional Campus, Bengaluru 560 024 India
B C UMASHANKAR Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University Regional Campus, Bengaluru 560 024 India
T S SUKANYA Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University Regional Campus, Bengaluru 560 024 India
G ANAND MANEGAR Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University Regional Campus, Bengaluru 560 024 India
A P MALLIKARJUN GOWDA Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University Regional Campus, Bengaluru 560 024 India
K T POORNACHANDRA Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University Regional Campus, Bengaluru 560 024 India

https://doi.org/10.56093/ijans.v96i2.173137

Keywords:

Barnyard millet, Browntop millet straw, Digestibility, Finger millet, Feed intake, Lactating cattle, Milk yield

Abstract

A study was conducted to evaluate the nutritive value of barnyard (BYS), browntop (BTS) and finger millet straw (FMS) based diets in lactating dairy cattle through two phases. In Phase I, proximate composition, fibre fractionation, in vitro gas production and digestibility of the straws and compounded feed mixture (CFM) were analyzed. In Phase II, a feeding trial was conducted on six late-lactation crossbred HF cows in Latin square design with three treatments: T1 (FMS + CFM), T2 (BYS + CFM) and T3 (BTS + CFM). CP was lowest in FMS (3.80%) and highest in BTS (5.23%), while lignin content was highest in FMS (4.28%) and lowest in BTS (3.19%). BYS showed highest (p<0.05) in vitro gas production (34.33 mL/200 mg DM) and ME (7.10 MJ/kg DM) compared to BTS (22.41 mL/200 mg DM and 5.55 MJ/kg DM). In vitro digestibility values indicated that BYS and BTS were nutritionally superior to FMS. In vivo, total dry matter intake was highest in BTS-fed cows (12.78 kg/d), followed by BYS (12.41 kg/d) and FMS (12.03 kg/d). CP intake and digestibility of DM, OM, CP, NDF and cellulose were higher in BYS and BTS diets while ADF and hemicellulose digestibility were similar in all the groups. Milk yield and 4% FCM were higher in BYS (7.28 and 7.12 kg/d) and BTS (7.22 and 7.16 kg/d) diets than FMS (6.89 and 6.81 kg/d). Therefore, barnyard and browntop millet straws were nutritionally superior to finger millet straw.

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