National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS)
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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692 Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
The deficiency of animal feed in semi-arid places leads to using of non-traditional resources, like saline plants, as animal feed. Therefore, this experiment was conducted to compare the consequences of replacing berseem hay (BH) with various proportions of Atriplex halimus (AH) and Atriplex nummularia (AN). Two trials were conducted to determine salt surfing digestion, growth performance, and feed efficiency. Twenty-one adult Barky lambs were used in the first trial. Also, thirty-five growing Barki lambs were used in the second trial. In both trials animals were divided into seven groups and each group received one of seven dietary treatments. The present results reported that leaves and twigs of AN contained higher levels of CP, FAT, and NFE than in AH treatments. They had significant (P< 0.05) effects on dry matter intake (DMI), lambs' body weight, and digestibility. In contrast, Degradability, higher gas production and in vitro fermentation range of BH to that these substrates had a higher nutritional value than the other browse species. Lambs receiving BH consumed (P< 0.05)more feed compared to those received AH or AN. Lambs weight, which fed a diet contained 50% or 25% of AH or AN increased compared with those feed 100%Atriplex only. The containing diets up to 50% of AN had no adverse effects on DMI and digestibility. In comparison, supplementing over 25% AH in diets decreased (P< 0.05) the digestibility of dry matter and organic matter. BH had the best relative feed value (203.92%), while AH had the lowest (123.37%). Economic efficiency criteria supported a conclusion that favored the 50% AN (T4) than other treatments. In conclusion, up to 50% of BH can be replaced with AN without adverse effects on feed intake and dry matter digestion.
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