Improving Production Performance of Peranakan Ongole Cows and Nutrient Digestibility of Rice Straw Based Diet with Energy-Protein Supplementation Given Separately or in Complete Feed

Abstract

Climate is the limiting factor for availability of good quality forage in Rembang regency. Rice straw is then given as an alternative feed for Peranakan Ongole (PO) cows. However, this feed is low in nutrient content and quality has low digestibility and low palatability. Overcoming this problem can be done by designing good quality supplements, such as nutrient rich supplement (SKN) that can be mixed with concentrate, or can be formulated in a complete feed. Therefore, this experiment was conducted to study responses of PO cows to improvement of rice straw based diet with supplementation and complete feed. The experiment was carried out in a randomised block design with 16 cows were allocated randomly into 4 groups. The treatments were R1 (rice straw), R2 (R1 + rice bran 2 kg/head/day), R3 (R2 + SKN 0.4 kg/head/day), and R4 (complete feed). The data were analysed using analysis of variances and differences among treatments were examined with contrast orthogonal test. The results showed that the use of rice bran, SKN and complete feed improved quality of rice straw as based diet which subsequently improved nutrient intakes. The treatments were significant on dry matter and crude protein digestibilities (P<0.05), but did not affect organic matter and energy digestibility, body weight gain and feed efficiency. The highest income over feed cost was obtained by using R2. It is concluded that giving complete feed (R4) produced the best performance of PO cows. SKN can still be used to improve rice straw based diet if the amount is increased.