Assessment of feeding practices, nutritional status and gap for dairy buffaloes in hilly districts Tehri Garhwal and Pithoragarh of Uttarakhand, India

Abstract

The present study was undertaken to assess season-wise feeding practices, availability, requirement, and nutritional gap of dairy buffaloes in Tehri Garhwal and Pithoragarh districts of Uttarakhand in year 2011–12. Feed samples were chemically analysed for proximate principles. Daily dry matter intake (DMI), crude protein (CP), metabolisable energy(ME), and nutritional gap were calculated. Results showed that both in Tehri Garhwal as well as in Pithoragarh, the lactating buffaloes were underfed in terms of quantity (DM).In Tehri, the shortage of dry matter was in the range of 25%, whereas protein shortage was 19% and energy deficit 17.3%. In Pithoragarh district the shortages were 27%(DM), 27% (CP) and 18.6% (ME). The approach of ‘utilize better’(improving the quality of present feed stuffs), ‘produce more’ (increasing biomass production) and ‘import’ (bringing nutrient supplements) could be resorted to fill the nutritional gap and optimize milk production in both the districts.