Livestock has a vital role in pakistanʾs economy. Livestock play a key role in alleviating poverty from our rural areas. Nutritional management is of keen importance in livestock business. Optimum supply of nutrients (protein and energy) is very important for precise farming. Establishing protein and energy requirement for animals has a vital role in livestock farming for guaranteeing the optimum supply of these nutrients. Under feeding and over feeding of these nutrients may negatively affect the performance of animal and also may have some adverse effect on environment by production of different types of hazardous gases. Protein requirement of buffalo depends on milk production and milk protein contents together with efficiency of conversion of dietary N to milk N. buffalo is reported to be less efficient converter of dietary N to milk N as compared to cows, however average dietary N conversion to milk still needs further investigation.
This study was conducted at Buffalo Research Institute, Pattoki. Three levels of crude protein were supplied to check their effect on production performance of buffaloes. Design for the experiment was 3×3 latin square including two animals in each treatment. Experiment was completed in 63 days (21 days in each period). During the study different parameters were determined by using different laboratory techniques. Milk parameters included milk yield, milk fat, milk protein and milk lactose. Blood parameters included urea, total protein, triglycerides (TG) and glucose. Fecal sampling was done to check N digestibility and feed analysis were also performed by using standard procedures. Data were analyzed using GLM procedures of SAS.
DMI was similar at all the treatments. DMI at low CP diet, medium CP diet and high CP diet was 14.3, 14.4 and 14.1 kg/d respectively. Milk yield was also identical at all the protein supplies and was 9.90, 10.0 and 9.82 kg/d for low protein supply, medium and high protein
Summary
41
supply respectively. Milk protein contents also showed no response and were 3.99, 3.94 and 3.99 % at low CP, medium CP and high CP respectively. Milk fat contents were also same at all the treatments and these were 6.63, 6.58 and 6.67 % at low, medium and high CP level of diet. Milk lactose concentration was 5.30, 5.26 and 5.31 % at all the three diets. Similarly protein yield, fat yield and lactose yield showed no response of this dietary variation of protein. Body weights of the animals were increased by increasing CP in diet. Body weights of the buffaloes were 478.3, 498.5 and 499.1 kg at low CP, medium CP and high level of CP in diet, respectively. Nitrogen intake was significantly higher at higher CP supplies and was 248.4, 297.3 and 314.3 g/d at low protein, medium protein and high protein levels. Similarly, CP intake was higher at higher protein supplies. CP intake increased from 1.553 to 1.964 kg/d by varying protein from low to high level. Nitrogen efficiency was decreased by increasing level of CP in diet and was decreased from 24.94 to 19.64% by increasing CP from low to high level in diet. BUN was increased linearly by increasing CP in diet, whereas blood glucose and triglycerides showed no response of this dietary manipulation.
In current feeding situation, no effect of increasing protein supply was observed on production status of these buffaloes. Blood urea nitrogen was increased whereas efficiency of nitrogen utilization was decreased by increasing CP in diet. So the recommended level of CP in ration for milk yield of 10 kg with 4% protein and 6.6% fat is 10.9%. But this still needs further investigations. Current experiment served as an opportunity to explore the effect of varying levels of CP on nitrogen utilization efficiency in buffaloes. Further research is required in high forage based diets.