Amado A. Angeles | Krystalene S. Decena
The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effects of feeding acacia pod meal (APM) on the growth performance of heifers and in vitro carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) production in rumen-cannulated cattle. In Exp. 1, 18 growing heifers (initial BW: 220 ± 20 kg) were randomly distributed to 3 dietary treatments: 1) 100% Rice bran-copra meal combination (RBC), 2) 50% Rice bran-copra meal-50% APM combination (RCA), and 3) 100% APM. Animals were provided their respective rations for 60 d based on a feeding rate equivalent to 3.5% of the animal’s BW (on a DM basis). Dietary treatments were offered at 70:30 roughage to concentrate ratio with the concentrate containing varying levels of APM. Inclusion of APM did not affect ADFI but negatively affected (P<0.05) both ADG and F:G. In Exp. 2, 3 rumen-cannulated cattle were used to measure the in vitro total gas, CO2 and CH4 production using either APM, napier grass, and rice bran D1-copra meal as incubation substrate. There were no differences in the quantities of total gas, CH4, CO2, and CO2:CH4 ratio measured between the treatments. It can be concluded that feeding acacia pod meal to growing cattle negatively affected ADG and F:G. In vitro gas production alone cannot explain the poorer growth performance observed in cattle fed with acacia pod meal.
ISSN 2619-7731 (Online)
ISSN 2094-8271 (Print)
Philippine E-Journals
