Supplementing rice straw with fresh water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) to improve diet quality and performance in growing local cattle

 Nguyen Van Thu

Cantho University, Vietnam
nvthu@ctu.edu.vn

Abstract

Four local male cattle with average live weight of 290 kg were arranged in a Latin-square design with four treatments, which included fresh water hyacinth (WH) levels replacing rice straw at levels of 0, 25, 50 and 75% in the diet (DM basis). A multi-nutrient cake containing 323 g CP/kg DM was supplemented in all the diets to adjust the daily CP intake to 210 g/100 kg BW.

The results shown that daily DM, OM and ME intakes were significantly different (P<0.05) among the diets. The DM intake decreased linearly as WH replaced rice straw (Figure 1). . Rumen pH, N-NH­3 and VFA concentrations were not significantly different among the treatments. DM digestibility increased with level of WH. Nitrogen retention and weight gain increased with curvilinear trends the optimum being with 50% straw replacement by WH  (Figures 2 and 3).

It is concluded that growth rates in cattle fed rice straw and rumen supplement are increased by water hyacinth up the 50% replacement level.

Figure 1. Effect on DM intake of cattle of replacing rice straw with fresh WH	Figure 2. Effect on N retention in cattle of replacing rice straw with fresh WH

Figure 3. Effect on live weight gain of cattle of replacing rice straw with fresh WH

 Keywords: Digestibility, feed intake, growth, N retention, rumen parameters,