More than 50% of Nepal's population lives in the hill regions, usually with small land holdings, and over 60% are considered below the poverty line. Livestock, and particularly goats, provide these small-scale farmers with about 55% of their on-farm income. We studied goat production in Katteldanda, a mid-hill village of 78 households, mainly Brahmins, in Ghorka District. Subsistence farmers raise six or seven goats and one or two buffalo, and cultivate mainly maize, millet and rice. Tree fodder constituted about 70% of dry matter intake of goats for large parts of the year and was collected by lopping branches from trees on upland, rain-watered, private terraces (bari) near the household compound. Local farmers ranked the fodder trees they considered best and we measured the actual fodder they offered to goats. In addition, we evaluated and ranked 23 fodder species on the basis of laboratory in vitro nutritional and metabolizable energy yields. Using a Mantel test, a significant correlation was found between what the farmers thought was best fodder and fodder offered to goats (Mantel r=0.398; P= 0.037) but non-significant correlations were found between either what the farmers thought was best fodder or fodder offered to goats and laboratory rankings (Mantel r=−0.027; P=0.49 and Mantel r=0.187; P=0.18, respectively). We concluded that biomass produced and availability throughout the year, in addition to nutritional and energy yield, are important criteria for selecting fodder trees for goat production.

Bhimal (Grewia optiva) is a fodder tree mostly found in mid hills of mid and far western region of Nepal. Bhimalcould constitutes one of the main livestock green fodders, especially for goats when fresh green fodder become limited during the winter dry season. However, the feeding value of Bhimalleaveson growth performance of castrated goats probably has not been evaluated so far. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to evaluate theeffect of Bhimalleaves feeding ongrowth performance of castrated male goatsfor 90 days.Altogether 16 growing castrated male goats of same breed, age and body weight were selected and equally divided into four treatments T1, T2, T3 and T4 with four replications by using Completely Randomized Design (CRD). Fourtypesof experimental diets wereprepared having various levels (0 to 100%) of Bhimalleaves as fodder. Experimental animals of Treatment 1 were fed with seasonal fodder + 100 g concentrate mixture, Treatment 2 with 100% Bhimal fodder + 100 g concentrate mixture, Treatment 3with 75% Bhimal fodder + 25% seasonal fodder + 100 g concentrate mixture, while Treatment 4 with 50% Bhimal fodder + 50% season fodder + 100 g concentrate mixture.All diets were fed ad-lib andexperimental animals had free access to drinking water. The dietsoffered and refusal was measured daily and weight change was observed fortnightly. The resultshowed that fodder intake (g/d/animal) and total dry matter intake (TDMI g/kg live weight) of goats differed significantly (P<0.01), but concentrate intake was not differed significantly (P<0.01) among treatments. The highest dry matter intake per animal /day was in Treatment 2 (52.75 g/kg live weight) followed by Treatment 4, Treatment 3 and Treatment 1 (51.7, 48.56 and 32.69 g/kg live weight, respectively).The average daily gain in body weight was observed highest in Treatment 2 (66.66 g/d) followed by Treatment 3 (31.66 g/d) and Treatment 4 (30.83 g). The growth rate was significantly (P<0.01) different among diet groups (P<0.05, P<0.01 and P<0.01 for 60, 75 and 90 days, respectively). In case of the feed conversion ratio, Treatment 2 had best ratio (8.79:1) than Treatment 1 (14.21:1), T3 (17.03:1) and Treatment 4 (18.59:1). The present response study showed thatbody weight in castrated male goatscan be increased significantly (P<0.05) implying that in winter season when other green forages are poorly available goat farming can be supported by Bhimalfodder tree. Keywords

An experiment was conducted on weaned piglets at Piggery Research Unit of Regional Agricultural Research Station (RARS), Tarahara, Sunsari from 12 September to 4 December 2019 for 84 days after adjustment period of seven days. Twenty piglets after weaning of 4-6 months age were allocated into four treatments each with 5 replications by using Completely Randomized Design. Four type of experimental diets were composed for experimental piglets. Piglets of T1 (control) group were provided adlib concentrate mixture, 95% concentrate feed + 5% water hyacinth (WH) were given to T2 group, 90% concentrate feed + 10 WH were offered to T3 group and piglets of T4 group were fed 85% concentrate feed + 15% WH as per their daily requirement. Feed and water hyacinth intake were recorded daily and body weight gain was measured once a week. Experiment revealed that feed and WH intake was highly significant (p<0.001) among treatment groups. Highest total body weight gain was obtained in control group (T1) (37.66 kg) followed by T3 (34.91 kg) and T2 (34.25 kg) which was non-significant among diet groups. Similarly, highest average daily gain was observed higher for T1 (control) group (448 g /day) followed by T3 and T2 group (415.59 and 407.73 g/day, respectively). Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) was observed almost similar in all treatment groups (1:2 kg). Experiment suggested that concentrate mixture can be safely replaced with WH up to 15% without any adverse effect on body weight gain.

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the inclusion effects of Dried Brewery Spent Grain (DBSG) to know its effect on growth performance and meat quality on poultry. Completely randomized design was used to compare the treatments in five replications. The treatments used were 15% DBSG (T1), 20% DBSG (T2), 25% DBSG (T3), Commercial feed (T4) and (0% DBSG) scavenging bird was used as a control. Each treatment contained 10 birds including 200 chickens in the whole investigation. The major factors body weight, carcasses and organs weight, cholesterol, total protein, albumin, and calcium were evaluated. Results showed that mean body weight of the experimental bird after 60 days was not significantly different (p>0.05) among the dietary treatments, i.e., T1 (781.46 g), T2 (738.36 g), T3 (728.91 g) and T4 (753.38 g). Carcass, breast muscle, thigh, wing, shank, liver and spleen were not significantly different (p>0.05) in weight between DBSG included diet and commercial feed. However, dressing percentage (59.3%) of T4 and gizzard (43.20 gm.) in T3 was significantly higher than other treatments. The significantly higher (p<0.05) amount of cholesterol found in T4 (312.01 mg/dl) followed by control diet (239.46 mg/dl), both of which were above than reference range (129-297 mg/dl). However, in other treatments i.e., T1, T2 and T3, the cholesterol content was in between the reference range. Similarly, same level (p>0.05) of total protein, albumin and calcium content in blood serum observed in BSG included diet and commercial diet. Hence, 15% to 20% inclusion of BSG could be the optimum level in diets of New Hampshire chickens.

An experiment was carried out on weaned rabbits at Swine and Avian Research Program, Khumaltar from 11 June 2020 to July 29, 2020 after adjustment period of seven days. The objective to evaluate the effect of hydroponically grown forages on growth performance of rabbit. The experiment was laid out in completely randomized design with three treatments viz. control without inclusion of hydroponic forage (T1), combination of pea and wheat hydroponic forage (T2), concentrate mixture with pea hydroponic forage (T3) and concentrate mixture with wheat hydroponic forage (T4) in rabbit feeding diet. A total of 60 rabbits each treatment containing 5 rabbits kept for 8th weeks’ period. The data on feed intake was recorded daily and body weight was measure in weekly basis. Combination of pea and wheat hydroponic forage treatment showed the significant results on feed intake, weight gain and feed conversion ratio(FCR). The experiment revealed that the highest forage hydroponic forage intake (177.48 g) and weight gain (158.67g) was observed in T2 (combination of pea and wheat in hydroponics system) and lowest in T1 (46.67g). The highest FCR was found in T1 (3.75) and lowest in T2 (2.28). The results of this study showed that growth performance of rabbits on combination of pea and wheat hydroponically grown forage feeding practices at intensive system found better than without hydroponically grown forage feeding practices.  Further study should be carried out to precise the appropriate hydroponic forage recommending this practices to the rabbit growers.