Natural grass and plant residue qualities and values to support lactating cows requirement on forage at Indonesian small scale enterprise and traditional dairy farming

Abstract

Dairy farming land becomes scarce due to high land-use competition. To be survive, dairy farmer utilize locally available natural grass and agricultural by-product. Research to explore the availability of the forages, to assess their quality and to determine their values in supporting small enterprise and traditional dairy farming in Indonesia have been conducted in a 3 years serial project. The study have been conducted in small enterprise dairy estate area (KUNAK) Cibungbulang District, Bogor Regency and traditional dairy farming of KPSBU cooperative members in Lembang District, West Bandung Regency. The results showed that during drought season in KUNAK, percentage of cows offered with rice straw, cabbage plant by-product, corn stover, and natural grass were 73%, 32.8%, 8.4% and 4.58% respectively. This condition was different with cows in KPSBU which were offered with high quality natural grass. Although small percentage of cows in KPSBU were also offered with the same type of plant residues, however, their qualities were much better. In total, uncultivated forage contributed to 31.46% and 44.56% of total drought and rainy seasons forage in KUNAK, while in KPSBU their contribution was about 31% in both seasons. With that systems and conditions, the different cows’ performance between both systems could be explained