Cowpea is an important legume crop in Africa, valued highly for its grain and also haulms, which are a tradable commodity in fodder markets. Fodder market surveys in Northern Nigeria showed that groundnut haulms were priced higher than cowpea haulms, probably because of their superior nutritive value. The economic value of haulms has prompted cowpea breeders and livestock nutritionists to explo...

Microbial protein synthesis of steers (liveweight 286±9 kg) was compared with diets of ad libitum winter grass and fodder beet with 1 kg DM of lucerne silage. The experimental design was a four-by-two treatment comparison (experiment 1 and 2), using 11 day individual pen trials with total faecal and urinary collection. The trials assessed in vivo digestibility of diets, and diurnal variations i...

Many interventions generated by research with the aim of improving the nutritional status of livestock in developing countries have failed to realize their apparent potential when implemented on farms. It is now widely accepted that this is because farmers try to meet a wide range of objectives in feeding their animals. Their decision making can be supported by a sophisticated, indigenous knowl...

In the production of fermented feed, each crop can be contaminated with a variety of microorganisms that may produce natural pollutants. Biogenic amines, mycotoxins, and undesirable organic acids can decrease health feed safety. The aim of this study was to compare the counts of microorganisms, levels of biogenic amines, and the mycotoxins in forage legumes, and also to compare the occurrence o...

BACKGROUND Although ferns are often known under collective names in Norway, e.g. blom, a substantial number of vernacular names for individual fern species are known, in particular for useful or poisonous taxa. In the past, the rhizomes (Norwegian: moldfôr) of selected species were collected for fodder. Only scattered records of such use are available from southern Norway, and the tradition's c...

Maize is one of the important cereal crops in the world agricultural economy both as food grains for human and fodder and feed for cattle and poultry. Maize grain contains about 72% starch, 10% protein, 4.8% oil, 5.8% fiber, 3.0% sugar and 1.7% ash (Choudhary, 1993). Along with this, it is rich in vitamin A, vitamin E, nicotinic acid, riboflavin and contains fairly high phosphorus than rice and...

BACKGROUND Livestock rearing is one of the oldest and most important types of smallholder farming worldwide. The sustainability of livestock production depends on the efficient utilization of locally available resources. Some traditional methods of raising livestock may offer valuable lessons in this regard. This study documented and evaluated local knowledge of wild forage plants in the Dulong...

to study the effect of strip intercropping pattern with cowpea and soybean on sorghum fodder yield an experiment was conducted at research farm of university of tehran (karaj) during 2005. the experiment was arranged in a randomized complete block design of four replications. the plant proportions included pure culture of sorghum (sss); cowpea (ccc) and soybean (ggg) each in 12 rows; vs differe...

Cannon fodder are expendable soldiers deployed as “food” for enemy cannon fire when there is no hope of ultimately prevailing: generals dispose of “worthless” soldiers by sacrificing them to the cannon. Here, I adopt the term Canon fodder to describe contrarian scientific concepts dismissed because they do not conform to conventional wisdom: reviewers dispose of “unworthy” science by sacrificin...

AIM To evaluate the methane generation potential and digestibility of different (normal and three high-quality protein maize [HQPM]) varieties of maize fodder with goat rumen liquor in vitro. MATERIALS AND METHODS Methane production potential and digestibility of different varieties of maize fodder were tested in in vitro gas production test. Seven varieties of maize, four normal (HTHM 5101, ...