The forage availability is important for supporting ruminant production. In developing countries, forage crop availability for cattle has decreased in quantity and quality due to land use changes and climate change. One of the solutions to the forage crop problem is the integration of livestock and agriculture. An optimized agricultural by-product could increase feed availability for ruminant cattle1.
One agricultural by-product that can be used as feed is palm oil. The by-products of palm oil include palm leaves, palm sludge and palm kernel meal. These palm oil by-products contain dry matter, crude protein and crude fiber that can be used as feed for ruminant cattle.
On the other hand the by-products including; palm leaves, palm sludge and palm kernel meal, can be problematic as base material for feed since it has high crude fiber content but a low crude protein content; this combination can decrease digestibility. To improve the nutrition value of palm oil by-products, leaf blades were used in the fermentation process2.
A new study was designed to determine the best effect of a fermented palm by-product-based ration on rumen parameters [ammonia (NH3) and volatile fatty acids (VFA)] and feed digestibility [total digestible nutrients (TDN), digestibility of dry matter, organic matter, protein and crude fiber], in Ongole cattle3. The study used 3 treatments i.e. R1 to R3 and 3 replicates; thus, nine cattle were included.
Rumen liquid NH3 is one of the final products generated by rumen microbes during the fermentation of feed protein. Subsequently, generated NH3 is used by microbes as an N source to synthesize body proteins. The treatment significantly increased rumen NH3 concentration. Increasing rumen NH3 level is recommended to aid in protein degradation.
The treatments R3 significantly increased dry matter digestibility (DMD), organic matter digestibility (OMD), crude protein digestibility (CPD) and TDN but did not have a significant effect on crude fiber digestibility (CFD). The fermentation process decreased the crude fiber content to 4%. Therefore, the fermentation process degraded complex components to simple components
The treatments had no significant effect on CFD. The CFD value was better for the R2 treatment than for the R0 and R1 treatments. These results might have been caused by the palm oil by-product fermentation process, which was improved by the addition of the many microbes. These microbes play a role in processing many substrates, including palm oil by-product.
It was concluded that Palm oil waste-based rations had increased rumen liquid NH3, rumen liquid VFA, the digestibility of dry and organic material and TDN. The fermented palm oil waste treatment had the best effect on TDN and the digestibility of dry matter, organic matter and crude protein.
Keywords:
Palm oil by-product, rumen liquid ammonia, rumen liquid VFA, dry matter, organic matter digestibility, protein digestibility, raw fiber digestibility, total digestible nutrients (TDN), waste-based rations, Ongole cattle, crude protein and fiber, nutrition, ration feed.
References:
- Muhtarudin, Y. Widodo, Liman and K. Adhianto, 2016. Utilization of micro-organic minerals in feed based on agroindustry by products to improve ruminant production. Pak. J. Nutr., 15: 846-848.
- Suyitman, L. Warly, A. Rachmat and D.R. Ramadhan, 2015. Effect of minerals S, P and cassava flour leaf supplemented with ammoniation palm leaves on the performance of beef cattle. Pak. J. Nutr., 14: 849-853.
- Muhtarudin, Liman, Permana, I.C.A. Pangestika, I., Wijianto, G.A., Susanti, E. and Adhianto, K., 2018. The Effect of Rations Based on Palm Oil By-products on Rumen Parameters and Digestibility in Ongole Cattle. Pak. J. Nutr., 17: 622-626.
Editor
Add comment