Dairy cattle nutrition and feed calculator-an android application.

Abstract

The dairy farmers in the tropical region have limitations regarding "feedstuffs" available. A software program is required to meet the nutrient requirement with the available feeds at the cheapest cost. There are many techniques/software that are implemented to meet dairy animal nutrient requirements. However, there are no specific techniques that are appropriate for formulating rations for dairy cattle in the least cost manner. An android application Dairy Cattle Nutrition and Feed Calculator (DCN & FC) is developed with an aim of least-cost feed balancing system which will help a farmer to choose feeds to meet the nutrient requirement set for ration. The quantity of feed, fed to the cattle to meet the required needs, is determined by nutrient content, dry matter intake (DMI), crude protein (CP) and total digestible nutrients (TDN) of the feed. This program works in three phases. The first phase consists of creating equations for the estimation of DMI, TDN and CP based on the nutrient tables provided by ICAR (2013) for different categories of cattle such as Milch cattle, dry cattle, male calves, female calves and pre-ruminant animals for different physiological stages such as body weight, average daily gain, fat and milk, using regression analysis. The second phase is the development of a linear programming (LP) model to solve different cases of nutrient requirements for least cost. The final phase is the use of the android framework that uses linear programming to suggest sufficient feed that meets the nutrient requirements. The developed application is user friendly and available in different languages. With the combination of linear programming and regression analysis, the ration can be effectively formed using available feeds, and control the cost of the feeds.