Abstract
The objective of this was to evaluate the effect of chemical treatments with urea (3 or 5% DM) and anhydrous ammonia (3% DM) applied to the post-harvest hay residues of Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu that contained different moisture contents (15, 25 or 30%). A randomized block design was used with eight treatments and four replications (defined as the bale layers within the hay stacks). The hay treated with 3% anhydrous ammonia and 15% moisture content reduced the levels of neutral detergent fiber (NDF) from 84.3 to 79.1% and increased the in vitro digestibility of the dry matter (DM) from 37.3 to 55.5% compared to the control group. The variation in the moisture content did not significantly alter the action of ammonia, with mean values of 77.6% NDF and 57.3% in vitro digestibility of DM. The hay with 5% urea reduces the NDF content from 84.3 to 79.6% compared to the untreated hay, so the hay moisture content has to be increased to 30% to achieve a greater effect on the DM digestibility, which subsequently increases by 12 percentage units.
Highlights
An alternative feeding regime that can be used to avoid fluctuations in meat and milk supply throughout the year is the feeding of available low cost food to ruminants during the dry season
The hay treated with 3% anhydrous ammonia and 15% moisture content reduced the levels of neutral detergent fiber (NDF) from 84.3 to 79.1% and increased the in vitro digestibility of the dry matter (DM) from 37.3 to 55.5% compared to the control group
The hay with 5% urea reduces the NDF content from 84.3 to 79.6% compared to the untreated hay, so the hay moisture content has to be increased to 30% to achieve a greater effect on the DM digestibility, which subsequently increases by 12 percentage units
Summary
An alternative feeding regime that can be used to avoid fluctuations in meat and milk supply throughout the year is the feeding of available low cost food to ruminants during the dry season. The provision of low cost food could be achieved through the efficient use of fibrous materials as supplements to the feed, such as the residual straw from seed grass production. This residue is available in the dry season and amounts to about 2.8 million t per year (Souza & Silveira, 2006). Despite the lower cost and ease of acquisition of these chemical products, the use of urea as a source of ammonia has an efficiency limitation in terms of the amount of water wasted in the application process, which complicates its practical application (Reis et al 2001)
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