Vol. 12, Issue 4 (2023)

Author(s):
MS Rudraswamy, Kusumakar Sharma and Narayan Dutta

Abstract:
Five steers (195.0 kg live weight) and age were individually housed and fed a basal diet of wheat straw ad libitum. The dose response effect of GNC on straw intake and nutrient utilization were tested in a 5x5 latin square design, with five experimental periods of 30 days each. The total intake capacity of each animal during the various experiments was known by feeding them the ration in the form of a ‘Sani’. The in vivo experiments were correlated with in vitro Hohenheim gas technique. The supplementation of GNC to wheat straw based diet was found to exert significant (p<0.05) effect on total intake of dry matter (DMI) and organic matter (OMI) by steers, N-retention significantly (p<0.05) but was lower as compared to its comparable values recorded in steers when GNC was given from 10 to 30% level. It was concluded that performance of the steers improved statistically at 5% level. Though feeding additional levels of groundnut cake could improve the performance but they were non significant.