Food and feeding habits of large cyprinid fishes (Labeobarbus intermedius, Labeobarbus nedgia, and Labeo forskalii) had been investigated in the upper Blue Nile River, Ethiopia. Four sampling sites were selected and specimens were sampled during the post-rainy (November 2016) and dry (March 2017) seasons by gillnets of 6 cm, 8 cm, 10 cm, 12 cm, and 14 cm mesh sizes. Totally 401 fishes were collected and about 30.4% (122) of the samples were documented with empty guts and 279 (69.6%) of them were with non-empty guts. The whole contents of all non-empty gut specimens were taken, labeled, and preserved using a 5% formaldehyde solution for further analysis. In the laboratory, gut contents were examined and identified using compound and stereo microscopes. The relative importance of different food items in the diet compositions was analyzed using a frequency of occurrence and volumetric analysis. During the post-rainy season, insects and phytoplankton were mostly ingested as food items. However, during the dry season, phytoplankton was the most important food item in the diet of all cyprinid fishes of the river. Based on current study results, L. intermedius and L. nedgia might be omnivores in their diet but Labeobarbus forskalii seemed to be detritivorous.

The experiment was conducted in Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center with the objective of evaluating the effects of sources of dietary protein supplemented to oat-vetch mixture hay on milk yield, milk composition and profitability in lactating crossbred dairy cows. Four high grade cross bred (Holstein Friesian × Boran) dairy cows with similar lactation stage (mid lactation) and parity were used. The experimental diets were T1 (ad libitum oat-vetch hay + noug seed cake), T2 (ad libitum oat-vetch hay + cottonseed cake), T3 (ad libitum oat-vetch hay + linseed cake) and T4 (ad libitum oat-vetch hay + mixture of the three oil seed cakes). A 4 × 4 Latin square design was used for the feeding experiment with four dietary treatments assigned to animals at random initially. The animals were offered hay at a rate sufficient to allow for a 20% refusal and the amount of concentrate offered was at 0.5 kg/l of milk in all treatments. The concentrate mix consisted of 33% oil seed cakes (OSC), 66% wheat bran and 1% salt. Treatment effects on milk yield, milk fat, milk protein, lactose and total solids were significantly different (P<0.05). Economic analysis showed that T2 based supplementation was feasible than the remaining dietary treatments. Therefore, it can be concluded that T2 can optimize both biological and economic response of dairy cows.