Vol. 12, Issue 6 (2023)

Author(s):
Kayitha Madhukar, JP Bordoloi, Jakir Hussain, Lakhya Jyoti Borah, J Saharia, DC Mili and Purabi Kaushik

Abstract:
Twelve healthy Jersey crossbred calves of average 5 months age were allocated to two experimental groups, control (T₀) and treatment (T₁) with six animals in each group. Calves of both groups were fed with a standard basal diet consisted of concentrate, green fodder and paddy straw along with feeding of a herbal liver tonic Rivliv* was fed orally @15 ml daily in the treatment group. The average initial and final body weight at 6^th fortnight of the calves were 88.86±3.15 and 88.86±2.91 kg and 106.67±3.40 and 109.98±3.24 kg respectively in T₀ and T₁ groups. Analysis of variance of the data did not reveal any significant difference (p>0.05) of average body weight between the groups. The mean daily body weight gain in T1 (0.25±0.01 kg) was significantly (p<0.01) higher than T₀ (0.19±0.00 kg). In respect of different fortnights, ADG was significantly (p<0.01) higher from 2^nd to 6^th fortnight. Similarly, the average of body weight gain in fortnights (14 days) was significantly higher (p<0.01) in T₁ (3.55±0.09 kg) than the T₀ (2.64±0.05 kg) group of calves. The mean body weight gain in a fortnight was higher (p<0.01) in T₁ group than theT₀ group from 2^nd to 6^th fortnight. The overall mean values of the conformation traits (cm) in T₀ and T₁ groups respectively were: 93.62±0.56 and 94.22±0.56 cm for body length; 104.12±0.65 and 104.52±0.51cm for chest girth as well as 90.08±0.77 and 90.70±0.72 cm for height at wither. All the conformation traits revealed a highly significant positive correlation (p<0.01) with body weight. There was non-significant (p>0.05) difference in all the 3 traits between the groups. The average daily cost of feed consumption (on DM basis) per calf were Rs. 37.02 and Rs. 41.11 and cost of feeding per kg body weight gain was Rs. 196.54 and Rs. 162.20 in T₀ and T₁ groups, respectively. Though, total cost of feeding was little higher in T₁ than the T₀ group, but lower cost of feeding per kg weight gain was found in T₁ than T₀.