No abstract

The potential of the spot urine sampling technique as an alternative to performing a total urine collection to predict the microbial nitrogen supply was evaluated in crossbred bulls. In a completely randomized design, 20 growing crossbred bulls were assigned four levels of feed intake (120, 100, 80 and 60% of voluntary dry matter intake) on diets comprised of wheat straw and concentrate mixture (50:50). After three months of experimental feeding, a metabolism trial was conducted for ten days, during which spot urine collections were performed every 6 h post feeding on days 9 and 10. The daily urinary excretion of allantoin (A) and purine derivatives (PD) decreased with the reduction in feed intake while creatinine (C) excretion remained similar in animals fed at different levels. The microbial nitrogen (MN) supply calculated from the PD excreted in total urine (35.08 to 72.08 g/d) was higher at increased levels of feed intake. PD concentration in spot urine samples had poor correlation with feed intake except at 12 h post feeding. A/C ratio and PD/C ratio in spot urine samples remained similar irrespective of sampling time and significantly (p<0.01) correlated with daily urinary PD excretion, digestible organic matter intake and dry matter (DM) intake. However, no significant differences were evident in these ratios among animals fed at levels 120, 100 and 80% of voluntary dry matter intake (VDMI) at different times post feeding. These results suggests that the spot urine sampling technique to predict the microbial protein supply is not suitable for detecting small differences in MN supply and hence, estimation of PD excreted in total urine (mmol/d) is necessary to assess precisely the MN supply in crossbred bulls.

A study was conducted to predict the rumen microbial protein production based on urinary excretion of purine derivatives in buffaloes fed a diet of wheat straw and concentrate (40:60) at four fixed levels of feed intake. (95, 80, 60 and 40% of preliminary voluntary feed intake) following experimental protocol of IAEA (Phase I). The buffaloes were allocated according to a 4×4 latin square design. The urinary allantoin, uric acid, total PD excretion (mmol/d) in treatments

Aim:This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of L-carnitine supplementation on growth performance, nutrient utilization and nitrogen balance in broilers fed with animal fat.Materials and Methods:80 day-old Cobb commercial broiler chicks were randomly assigned into two dietary treatment groups with four replicates of ten chicks each. The diets were isonitrogenous and isocaloric. The birds in both the control (T1) and treatment group (T2) were fed with a diet having 5% animal fat, while the treatment group (T2) was supplemented with 900 mg of L-carnitine. The birds were fed with standard broiler starter ration up to 4 weeks of age and finisher ration up to 6 weeks of age.Results:The average body weight (g), cumulative feed intake (g) and cumulative feed conversion ratio belonging to groups T1 and T2 at 6th week of age were 2091.25 and 2151.11, 3976.49 and 4171.68, 1.97 and 1.96 respectively. The percentage availability of the nutrients of two experimental rations T1 and T2 was 68.23 and 68.00 for dry matter, 58.72 and 55.98 for crude protein, 73.85 and 71.35 for ether extract, 34.19 and 33.86 for crude fiber, 79.18 and 79.59 for nitrogen free extract, 70.24 and 70.03 for energy efficiency and nitrogen balance (g/day) were 2.35 and 2.39, respectively.Conclusion:This study suggests that the supplementation of 900 mg L-carnitine in diet with added animal fat had no effect on growth performance, nutrient utilization, and nitrogen balance of broilers.

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of maize green fodder produced by hydroponics system on the performance of eighteen weaned crossbred calves and Calves were divided into three groups T1, T2 and T3 of six each as uniformly. The calf starter in dietary treatments T1, T2 and T3 contained 24, 20 and 17 per cent of Crude Protein (CP), respectively and 70 per cent Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN). The T2 and T3 treatments were made iso-nitrogenous with T1 by supplementing hydroponics maize fodder. The results obtained in the present study showed significant difference among different treatment groups regarding Dry matter intake (DM), total body weight gain, Average daily gain (ADG) and Feed conversion ratio (FCR) with a higher (P less than 0.05) values observed for calves belonging to T3 than groups T1 and T2. Data on digestibility of nutrients does not reveal any difference (P>0.05) among treatment groups. Cost per kg gain was significantly (P less than 0.05) lower in T3 (Rs.102.14) than groups T2 (Rs. 111.64) and T1 (Rs. 119.82). On conclusion, feeding of hydroponics maize fodder as a partial feed substitute of calf starter on protein basis at seven per cent level improves the DM intake, total body weight gain, ADG and lowers the cost per kg body weight gain.