Background:
The crop residues are principal diet in ruminants’ especially in tropical countries and they are deficient in nitrogen, minerals and vitamins. In order to mitigate the deficiency of these nutrients in crop residues to a greater extent to fetch the improvements in the production performance of ruminants (cattle and buffaloes), a complex of cane molasses, urea, minerals and vitamins in liquid form (UMLD) have been developed. This technology can be used to balance the crop residues-based diet under normal vis-à-vis drought and flood-affected areas to get the appropriate production performance under scarcity conditions. Technology Details:
Cane molasses are a cheap source of energy-rich in Sulphur though grossly deficient in nitrogen has been used in the diets of ruminants for different purposes. A combination of urea and protected protein gives a better response than NPN as N source alone and the levels of protein meal have been varied from 2 to 13% of molasses. Experiments have been conducted on supplementation of intact protein to urea molasses liquid diet (UMLD) in the form of fish meal/cotton seed meal in growing ruminants and found very effective with regard to the performance of animals. UMLD comprised (%) of cane molasses-84, urea-3, fish meal—10, mineral mixture-2 and salt-1. This technology is simple, easily adoptable and convenient for easy transportation in cane molasses tankers to draught and flood-affected areas and can also be stored for a reasonably long period. During draught/flood periods, UMLD can be fed to ruminants as a scarcity feeds for 120-150 days along with the small amount of green fodder and crop residues. Moreover, UMLD can also be fed to replace conventional concentrate mixture from 15-20% under normal feeding regime in ruminant diets.