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Matching Livestock Systems with Available Resources |
MEKARN Regional Conference 2007 |
Forty Holstein Frisian cattle weighing on average 480 kg were allocated at random to 4 treatments in a 2*2 factorial experiment. The first factor was “Mixed Diet - MD”, consisting of Napier grass, concentrate, brewery waste, alfalfa hay and sugar cane juice and “Separate Diet - SD”, including the same feedstuffs supplied separately. The second factor was “temperature-humidity improved environment - IE”, consisting of sprayed water and air fan or none (NIE). The diets were supplied ad-libitum during 4 months experimental period.
A higher total DM intake was observed for treatment “IE” compared with "NIE" and for “MD” compared with "SD". The highest total DM intake was observed for treatment MD-IE, with 3.12 kg DM/100 kg LWt/day, followed by treatments SD-IE, MD-NIE and SD-NIE, with 2.85, 2.95 and 2.66 kg DM/100 kg LW/day, respectively. The milk yield on treatment MD-IE was greater than on treatments SD-IE, MD-NIE and SD-NIE (P<0.001). The highest milk yield was observed for treatment MD-IE, with 9.23 kg, followed by treatments SD-IE, MD-NIE and SD-NIE, with 7.45, 9.17 and 7.39 kg, respectively. There were non-significant differences in the body temperature, heart rate and breath rate among treatments.
Key words: Dairy cattle, mixed diet, temperature humidity index, dry matter intake, milk yield and physiology parameters.