Bypass protein technology and the impact of feeding bypass protein to dairy animals in tropics: A review

Abstract

Under tropical conditions, even the medium producing dairy animals can be fed bypass protein, to increase their productivity, in terms of growth and milk production. The availability of naturally occurring bypass protein is very less, hence the highly degradable proteins like groundnut-, mustard-, sunflower-, safflower-cakes and soybean-meal could be given protection, either through heat treatment (roasting) as in soybean-meal, or given formaldehyde treatment, for the other cakes. Through the research studies conducted at NDRI, Karnal, all the apprehensions about the safety of formaldehyde treatment have been removed. There is an additional advantage of treating mustard-cake with formaldehyde, as it not only protects protein in rumen, but also protects the glucosinolates from its conversion to `thiocynate in rumen. In India, the technology of feeding bypass protein to dairy animals has been accepted by some farmers, and bypass protein Feed is now being manufactured exclusively by some commercial feed factories, including NDDB, Anand.