Effects of different levels of oxalic acid administration on feed intake and nutrient digestibility in goats

An experiment was carried out to investigate the effects of oxalic acid administration on feed intake and nutrient digestibility in goats. Four female cross bred (Boer × local) goats (average body weight of 46.3 kg) were randomly assigned to four experimental diets including oxalic acid administration at levels of 0, 2.25, 4.50 and 6.75 g/animal/d in a 4×4 Latin Square design. Oxalic acid diluted with water was administered orally via syringe to experimental goats once daily for four experimental periods. Each experimental period was lasted 21 d in length, comprising 14 d of adaptation to the experimental diet followed by 7 d of data collection. All the animals were individually fed with Napier grass ad libitum supplemented with 300 g (fresh basis) pelleted compound feed per goat per day throughout the study. Feed composition, feed intake, nutrient intake and nutrient digestibility were determined. Intakes of dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and metabolisable energy tended to linearly decrease with the increasing rate of oxalic acid administration, with the value in the 6.75 g oxalic acid/animal/d treatment being significantly (p<0.05) lower than the control (0 g oxalic acid/animal/d) treatment. The oxalic acid administration had no effect on apparent digestibilities of DM, OM, CP and NDF. The experiment demonstrated that oxalic acid administration may influence in the DM and nutrient intakes, but not influence on DM and nutrient digestibilities in goats

Modeling for growth and forecasting of pulse production in Bangladesh

The present study was carried out to estimate growth pattern and examine the best ARIMA model to efficiently forecasting pigeon pea, chickpea and field pea pulse production in Bangladesh.It appeared that the time series data for pigeon pea, chickpea and field pea were 1st order homogenous stationary.Two types of models namely Box-Jenkins type Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and deterministic type growth models, are examined to identify the best forecasting models for pigeon pea, chickpea and field pea pulse production in Bangladesh.The study revealed that the best models were ARIMA (1, 1 and 1), ARIMA (0, 1 and 0) and ARIMA (1, 1 and 3) for pigeon pea, chickpea and field pea pulse production, respectively.Among the deterministic type growth models, the cubic model is best for pigeon pea, chickpea and field pea pulse production. The analysis indicated that short-term forecasts were more efficient for ARIMA models compared to the deterministic models.The production uncertainty of pulse could be minimized if production were forecasted well and necessary steps were taken against losses.The findings of this study would be more useful for policy makers, researchers as well as producers in order to forecast future national pulse production more accurately in the short run

Effect of corn grain in a wet soya waste based total mixed ration silage on goat performance

The utilisation of wet soya waste as feed is low due to difficulties of storage and transportation, which needs to reach normal technical standard and comprehensive utilisation. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of cracked corn grain as a source of moisture absorbent and energy in a wet soya waste based total mixed ration silage on goat performance. Ten growing goats were assigned to two feeding treatment groups for 84 days. Goats in Group 1 received Napier grass (Pennisetum purpuerum) ensiled with 30% soya waste (w/w) and 8% molasses (w/w) (T1) as control, and Group 2 received same grass ensiled with 30% soya waste (w/w) and 15% cracked corn grain (w/w) (T2). All goats received their respective silage ad libitum after 2 months of fermentation. The pH in T1 silage was 4.1, while pH in T2 silage was 4.0. Goats fed T2 diet showed higher intakes of dry matter, organic matter and metabolisable energy than those of goats fed T1 diet, while it was observed vice versa for neutral detergent fibre intake. However, there was no difference in average daily gain and feed conversion ratio between two treatment diets. Results of this study indicate that cracked corn grain, as a source of moisture absorbent and energy, can be used successfully in wet soya waste based total mixed ration silage for growing goats

Effect of substituting concentrate with dwarf Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum) on intake, growth and carcass composition of rabbits

Dwarf Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum) is considered to be more suitable as forage for ruminants due to its high yield and nutritive value, but there is limited research on rabbits. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of replacing concentrate with dwarf Napier grass on intake, gorwth performance and carcass composition of growing rabbits. Twelve growing rabbits were randomly distributed into three dietary groups in a completely randomised design: (i) concentrate feed ad libitum as control diet (T1), (ii) half of the control diet plus dwarf Napier grass ad libitum (T2), and (iii) quarter of the control diet plus dwarf Napier grass ad libitum (T3). The results showed that diets had a significant (p&lt;0.05) effect on intake, growth performance and some non-carcass components. Rabbits fed T3 diet showed significantly (p&lt;0.05) lower total DM intake than those fed T1 and T2 diets. Similarly, rabbits fed T3 diet showed significantly (p&lt;0.05) lower total weight gain and daily weight gain than those fed T1 diet, but the respective values of those fed T2 diet were non-signifiacntly different from those fed T1 and T3 diets. There was significant effect on weights of meat with bone, fat, pelt, head and kidney by the diets, whereas weights of most of the non-carcass components were similar among the groups. In conclusion, diet consisting of half of the concentrate and dwarf Napier grass ad libitum is recommended to be used as it may reduce the feed cost compared to diet consisting of the concentrate alone

Effects of calcium fertilization on oxalate of napiergrass and on mineral concentrations in blood of sheep

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of calcium （Ca） fertilization on oxalate content in napiergrass （Pennisetum purpureum） and on some blood parameters of sheep. Re-growth napiergrass was grown with or without Ca fertilizer and offered to sheep. Eight sheep, divided into two groups of 4 animals each were used. Calcium-fertilized napiergrass was offered daily to the animals as experimental treatment, whereas without Ca-fertilized napiergrass was given to the animals as control. Results showed that there was a trend to lower soluble and total oxalate concentrations in Ca-fertilized grass than control. The Ca-fertilized grass contained （p0.05） on Ca and Na concentrations in plants. Feeding of Ca-fertilized grass had no affect on the feed consumption, blood Mg level and daily gain of sheep. However, sheep fed control grass had lower （p<0.05） blood Ca level than sheep fed Ca-fertilized grass. Our findings suggest that Ca fertilization might minimize the negative effects of oxalate

Effect of Napier grass ensiled with or without inclusion of soy waste on the performance of growing goats

Utilization of soy waste as a ruminant feed is low due to storage problems and transportation costs. An experiment was carried out with fifteen goats to assess the feeding value of Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum) ensiled with or without soy waste. Grass ensiled without soy waste was termed as NM silage, while grass ensiled 30% soy waste (w/w) was termed as NMS silage. In both silages, 1.0% molasses (w/w) were incorporated to enhance the fermentation process. After 2months of ensiling, three diets were formulated and assigned to one of three groups: (i) Napier grass ad libitum plus 1% pellet of body weight (BW) on a dry matter (DM) basis (T1), (ii) NM silage ad libitum plus 1% soy waste of BW on a DM basis (T2), and (iii) NMS silage ad libitum (T3). The NMS silage showed a lower pH (4.04 vs. 4.64) than NM silage. The NMS silage exhibited higher proportions of DM, organic matter (OM), and crude protein (CP) compared to NM silage. Animalsreceived T1 diet showed higher (p&lt;0.05) DM, OM and neutral detergent fibre intake compared to the animals received T2 and T3 diets. However, animals received T2 diet showed higher CP intake than the animals received T1 and T3 diets. Similarly, animals received T2 diet showed higher (p&lt;0.05) BW gain (49.4 vs. 16.5 g/d) than the goats fed T3 diet. In conclusion, the T3 diet may have limited goat performance, which needs further study to improve the quality of silage

PTS Method with Combined Partitioning Schemes for Improved PAPR Reduction in OFDM System

Although orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is an efficient wireless transmission system, it suffers from a crucial drawback namely high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) that limits transmitter power efficiency. Thus, different PAPR reduction algorithms have been introduced. Partial transmit sequence (PTS) is the most attractive solution which can provide good PAPR reduction performance without distortion. In any PTS system, partitioning of the OFDM frame into disjoint sub-blocks is a significant step. Out of the existing partitioning techniques, adjacent partitioning (AP) is a fairly simple partitioning scheme achieving efficient PAPR reduction performance. This paper presents an enhanced PTS approach that combines two PTS partitioning schemes, adjacent and interleaved partitioning, in order to effectively reduce the PAPR of OFDM systems. With an aim of determining the effects of length variability of adjacent partitions, we performed an investigation into the performances of a variable length adjacent partitioning (VL-AP) and fixed length adjacent partitioning in comparison with the enhanced PTS scheme

Effect of extender supplemented with date palm pollen grain on bovine semen qualities

Natural extract from plant-based has grown in popularity as protective properties in extender for preserving animal semen. Date palm pollen grain (DPPG) is commercially used for male fertility by enhancing sperm count, motility and DNA quality because DPPG contains flavonoids. Thus, the present study aimed to evaluate the effect of a) extender supplementation with different concentration of DPPG on sperm motility, viability and membrane integrity b) different preservation storage of chilled and frozen bovine semen after seven days. The semen was collected through electrical stimulation and assigned to four treatment groups. The semen were diluted in Tris citric fructose egg yolk (TCFY) diluent (control group; CG) or supplemented with DPPG with different concentration (G1 = 2%, G2 = 4% and G3 = 6% in 20 mg DPPG/40 mL of Tris citric fructose (TCF). Semen samples were chilled (experiment 1) in the refrigerator (4°C) for seven days and cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen (experiment 2) prior to dilution to four treatments. The samples were thawed in a water bath (37 °C) and analysed for motility, membrane integrity and viability by conventional laboratory methods. No significant difference was observed among treatment groups in experiment 1. However, in the second experiment, the addition of 6% DPPG resulted significantly higher (p&lt;0.05) in sperm viability compared to control groups (71.25±1.04) vs (56.47±4.69). The supplementation of 6% DPPG showed the ability to protect the viability of bovine sperm, respectively

Effect of complete pellet containing Asystasia gangetica leaf on intake, digestibility, growth, carcass composition and meat quality of Muscovy duck

In poultry, one alternative is to reduce the feed cost using local feed ingredients. Asystasia gangetica is a weed that contains a lot of protein. Compared to other poultry, ducks can use more fibre. This study was conducted to determine the effect of diet, including A. gangetica leaf, on intake, digestibility, growth, carcass composition, and meat quality of Muscovy duck. A total of 30 unsexed ducks (4 weeks of age) with an average body weight of 900 g were divided into two dietary groups (with 3 replications of 5 ducks each): control (0% A. gangetica) and treatment (15% A. gangetica). Ducks were fed their respective diets ad libitum in pellet form for 28 days. Ducks were slaughtered at the end of the experiment to evaluate the carcass composition and meat quality. Results showed that the ducks fed a treatment diet showed a higher (p0.05) were observed in the growth, feed conversion ratio, and carcass composition between the groups except the wings part, where the ducks fed the control diet showed a higher yield (258 vs. 240g) of wings part than the other group, respectively. Similarly, no differences (p>0.05) were observed in the chemical composition, colour, or pH of meats between the groups, except for dry matter content. However, the meat obtained from the control group showed a higher (136.8 vs. 109.5 mg/100 g of meat) potassium concentration than the treatment group, respectively. It is concluded that the feed ingredients can partially be replaced with A. gangetica in duck’s diets. However, further study is required to find out the optimum level of A. gangetica that can be included in the duck’s diet