Buffalo dung wastelage as sole or partial source of nutrients to sheep

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Wheat straw, dung and molasses were mixed in a 2:7:1 ratio and the mixture was enriched with urea (500 g per 100 kg of mixture) prior to ensiling. Two wastelages using dung from either adult male buffaloes fed at maintenance (concentrate to roughage ratio, 1:4) or growing male buffalo calves receiving a high concentrate diet (concentrate to roughage ratio, 1:1), were prepared and fed in experiments 1 and 2, respectively. Three levels of concentrate —0, 200 and 400 g in experiment 1 and 0 100 and 200 g in experiment 2—were fed, in addition to wastelages, to sheep, in a 3 × 3 latin square design. The wastelage prepared from poor quality dung (PD-wastelage) contained lower crude protein and cell contents and higher organic matter, NDF, ADF and cellulose than the wastelage prepared from higher quality dung (GD-wastelage). The intake and digestibilities of dry matter and other organic constituents increased with the increasing level of supplementation to the PD-wastelage ration. Ligno-silica intake was, however, reduced with the level of supplementation. PD-wastelage without any supplementation supplied only 36% and 34% of DE and DCP requirements. In experiment 2, the nutrient intake and digestibilities increased with 100 g of concentrate feeding. Further increases in intake or digestibilities were non-significant after increasing the level of supplementation to 200 g. As sole ration GD-wastelage met total DCP requirement for maintenance but met only about 57% of DE requirement. In both experiments, nitrogen retention increased with increasing level of supplementation.