Effects of Protein and Roughage Sources in Total Mixed Ration on Voluntary Feed Intake, Nutrient Intake and Blood Metabolites in Black Bengal Goats

Abstract

Background: Agricultural productivity in Southeast Asian countries are important to produce food for human, thus the first priority to improve agricultural productivity is feed and feeding in livestock, especially in ruminants when rice straw and Napier grass are used as the roughage sources; in addition, cassava leaves and Leucaena leaves can be used as the protein sources. Interestingly, the strategy to improve feed in ruminant is through the use of total mixed rations (TMR) which are produced by combination of roughages, concentrates, minerals, vitamins and additives. Methods: During the period 2020-2021 a study with 2 × 2 factorial, in 4 × 4 Latin square design with 21 days per period tested the following TMR’s T1- 5% urea treated rice straw with dried Leucaena leaves, T2- 5% urea treated rice with dried cassava leaves, T3- fermented napier grass with dried Leucaena leaves and the T4- fermented napier grass with dried cassava leaves on voluntary feed intake, nutrient intake and blood metabolites in Black Bengal goats. Result: All treatments did not affect voluntary feed intake (kgDM/head/day and % BW) (P greater than 0.05), but feeding with 5% urea treated rice with dried cassava leaves, it was non significantly higher (0.71 kgDM/day). Furthermore, nutrient intake of organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF) and rumination were not affected among all the four treatments (P greater than 0.05). Additionally, blood glucose, blood urea nitrogen and triglyceride concentrations in plasma were not influenced due to treatments (P greater than 0.05). Nevertheless, Feed cost (USD/kg) was reduced T3 and T4. In conclusion, feeding Black Bengal goat with fermented napier grass with dried Leucaena leaves and fermented napier grass with dried cassava leaves in the TMR were suitable because of the lowest price (0.13 USD/kg) when compared to the other treatments.