Use of different kind of silage dairy cattle manure in lamb nutrition

Abstract

Feeding cattle manure (CM) for ruminants may reduce feed costs for smallholders and provide a partial solution to environment problems for large dairy herds. Feeding value of ensiling CM with molasses (MO), bakery by-products (BBP) and tallow (TW) was evaluated. Five Suffolk male lambs were fed with different kind of CM as follow: 1) control: CM and MO; 2) LBBP: CM and low level of BBP; 3) HBBP: CM and high level of BBP; 4) LTW: CM, BBP and low level of TW; and 5) HTW: CM, BBP and high level of TW. Ensiling CM with BBP had the lowest silage losses. Silages were part of diets, which were fed to lambs fitted with ruminal cannulas. Nutrient intake and N balance did not differ in lambs across all experimental diets, but the NDF digestion of diets with BBP and TW was lower than with MO or BBP. Ensiling CM with BBP offered less silage losses as compared to MO.

Keywords

• Cattle manure, Digestion, Lambs, N balance.