BACKGROUND The effect of pre-weaning concentrate supplementation on peripheral distribution of leukocytes, functional activity of neutrophils, acute phase protein response, metabolic and behavioural response, and performance of abruptly weaned and housed beef calves was investigated. Calves were grazed with their dams until the end of the grazing season when they were weaned and housed (day (d)...

six red sokoto (rs) and west african dwarf (wad) does, raised intensively in livestock farm of michael okpara university were evaluated for milk yield and composition in a ten-week study. the animals in their first parity were fed cut-and-carry forages in a cafeteria arrangement between 07:00-08:00 h daily and also were allowed access to concentrate supplementation by 14:00 h. the forage consis...

the experiment was designed to investigate the effects of saccharomyces cerevisiae supplementation on the efficiency of rations containing different levels of concentrate in male holstein calves. 36 male holstein calves (average body weight of 175. 9 ± 5.54 kg) were allocated into six treatments of 60, 70 and 80 percent of concentrate with or without yeast culture based on a 2 x 3 factorial des...

Twenty-eight Angus (289 +/- 3.8 kg) steers were used in a completely randomized design to evaluate the effect of isocaloric supplementation of 2 different energy sources to steers rotationally grazing tall fescue pastures for 197 d in comparison to positive and negative controls. Steers were supplemented with either corn grain (0.52% BW on a DM basis; PC) or soybean hulls plus corn oil (0.45% B...

As ruminants are able to digest fibre efficiently and assuming that competition for feed v. food use would intensify in the future, cereals and other field crops should primarily be destined to cover the dietary needs of humans and monogastric animals such as poultry and pigs. Farming systems with a reduced or absent concentrate supplementation, as postulated by organic agriculture associations...

Thirty-two Alpine doelings (15 wk of age, 12 ± 2.05 kg) were randomly allocated to four treatments to evaluate the use of deep-stacked broiler litter (BL) and urea-treated wheat straw (UWS) as feedstuffs. In all treatments, UWS or untreated wheat straw (WS) was fed for ad libitum consumption along with a concentrate supplement fed at a prescribed percentage of BW. Treatments were: U B a corn-ba...

Studies were conducted to determine the effects of feeding regimens on growth and carcass quality of the Creole goat, a genotype indigenous to the Caribbean. Forty kids weighing 9.0 +/- 1.2 kg of BW were reared indoors after weaning. Four supplement amounts were compared (10 kids per treatment): the G0 group received the basal diet (tropical forage, 8.8 MJ of ME and 108 g of CP/kg of DM) withou...

The general objective of this study was to come up with an appropriate, affordable and locally available crop residue supplementation package that would enhance reproductive performance in small ruminants. Specifically, 28 Red Sokoto weaner does between 3 and 4 months of age weighing between 2 and 3 kg were used in the first experiment to determine the influence of crop residue supplementation ...