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MEKARN Conference 2010 |
The objectives were to study the effect of nitrate-nitrogen diet on the growth performance and rumen gases change in goats fed high in rumen undegradable protein in the form of foliage from Mimosa pigra. 12 young goats were randomly allocated to four treatments and three replications. Urea were subsequently dropped and replaced by nitrate without changing exogenous nitrogen content to have four levels of nitrate (0, 2, 4 and 6%) based on dry matter intake. There was a very good improvement in feed intake as percentage of body weight (P<0.000) when nitrate levels increased. Growth performance was insignificant different (P<0.83) with urea as a sole fermentable nitrogen supplement and/ or after being completed replaced by nitrate. However, there was a tendency for goats fed nitrate to have a slightly higher weight gain than urea. The growth curve of all animals is linear when percentage of supplementary nitrate increased respectively although there were was some inconsistency in animal performance within early stage of adaptation of 21 days. Rumen ammonia content was high with 34 mg/100 ml for 2 and 4% of supplementary nitrate and 42.5mg/100 ml for urea level equivalent to 6% nitrate based on dry matter basis.
The results indicate that nitrate can be safely used as rumen supplementary nitrogen source as well as urea to improve animal feed intake and animal performance with another advantage of reduction of rumen methane emission.
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| Figure 1. Mean growth rates of goats fed rice straw soaked in palm juice and mimosa foliage with 0, 2, 4 or 6% of the diet as sodium nitrate replacing equivalent amounts of urea as NPN | Figure 2. Growth curves of goats fed rice straw soaked in palm juice and mimosa foliage with 0, 2, 4 or 6% of the diet as sodium nitrate replacing equivalent amounts of urea as NPN |