Seasonal Variations in Voluntary Intake and Apparent Digestibility of Forages in Goats Grazing on Introduced Leymus chinensis Pasture
The nutrient composition of pasture, voluntary intake and digestibility of diet ingested by goats grazing on an introduced Leymus chinensis pasture were measured across spring (May), summer (July), autumn (October) and winter (March). In each season, 12 Inner Mongolian Cashmere goats (6 wethers and 6 does with an average live weight of 22.2±1.3 kg and 19.5±0.8 kg, respectively) were used to graze on a 2 hectares size paddock. Diet selection was observed and the plant parts selected by grazing goats and whole plant L. chinensis were sampled simultaneously. The alkane pair C32:C33 and C36 were used to estimate intake and digestibility, respectively. The results showed that the plant parts selected by goats had higher crude protein (CP) and lower acid detergent fiber (ADF) and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) than the whole plant, especially in the autumn and winter. The voluntary intake of dry matter (DM), CP, ADF, NDF, and metabolizable energy (ME) by goats was highest in summer (p<0.05). The goats ingested more CP, ME, and less ADF in spring than in autumn (p<0.05). The intakes of DM, CP, and ME were lowest in winter (p<0.05). There were significant differences in nutrient intake between wethers and does in each season, except for the ADF and ME intake per metabolic weight (LW0.75). The nutrient digestibilities were higher in spring and summer, and decreased significantly during the autumn and winter (p<0.05). Goats, especially wethers, had a relative constant NDF digestibility across seasons, however, the apparent digestibility of CP in both wethers and does, decreased to negative values in winter. The grazing goats experienced relatively sufficient nutrients supply in spring and summer, and a severe deficiency of CP and ME in winter.
Effect of Community-Based Buck Selection and ProductionSystem on Growth Performance, Carcass and Meat Quality Characteristics of indigenous Malawian Goats
The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of community-based buck selection of indigenous Malawian goats under different feeding systems on growth performance, carcass and meat quality characteristics. Forty castrated male goats (20 sired by community selected bucks and the remainder from 20 unselected ones), one-year-old and weighing (16.68 ± 2.02) at the commencement of the study were randomly allocated to either semi-intensive or free-range production system in a 2×2 factorial treatment structure. The four treatment combinations were: (1) selected goats + grazing + supplementation; (2) selected goats +grazing only; (3) unselected goats +grazing +supplementation; (4) unselected goats +grazing only. Goats were allowed to graze for eight hours (07:00 15:00hrs) daily while supplementation (500g of concentrate/day/goat supplying 160 g/kg DM crude protein) was done after grazing. The concentrate consisted of soybean meal (18%), maize meal (20%), maize bran (59.3%), lime (1%), MCP (1%) and salt (0.7%). The goats were tagged and dewormed before the trial. The goats were weighed on day 0, 15, 30, 45 and 60 of the experiment to determine the weight gain and thereafter slaughtered for carcass and meat quality evaluation. Buck selection in combination with semi-intensive system produced goats which had significantly higher final weight, total and daily weight gain than the rest of the treatments. However, there were no differences (P > 0.05) in the final body live weight, total gain and average daily gain between goats born to unselected bucks raised in both semi-intensive and free range. The same pattern was observed for slaughter weight, hot and cold carcass weights. Regardless of the production system, meat from selected goats had higher a* values than unselected. Selected goats raised under semi-intensive system had lower mean values of cooking losses than the other treatments. It was concluded from this study that community-based buck selection and production system had significant effects (P < 0.05) on growth performance, carcass and meat quality characteristics of indigenous Malawian goats. Therefore, it was recommended that for optimal performance of indigenous Malawian goats in terms of growth, carcass and meat quality, selection should be accompanied by grazing and supplementation.
Influence of Diluted Spent Wash of Sugar Industries Application on Yield of and Nutrient Uptake by Sugarcane and Changes in Soil Properties
A pot experiment was conducted to study the effect of irrigation with tube well water (S0) as well as with spent wash diluted for 25 (S25), 50 (S5O) and 100 (S100) times on yield of and nutrient uptake by sugarcane grown on Typic Chromustert. The results revealed that application of spent wash diluted at any level increased the sugarcane yield and nutrient uptake significantly over S0. Less diluted spent wash gave higher yield of biomass than the concentrated one. Though, there was tendency for slight increase in the soil salinity due to use of spent wash, yet the nutrient availability of P, K and S increased considerably. Further, there was indication of betterment in some physical conditions of soil.