Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the feed and nutrient intake, requirement, nutritional status, productive and reproductive performances of pre-natal Red Chittagong cows (RC) under small-scale farm feeding condition. To achieve the aim, a total of ten farmers were randomly selected. Farmers who had at least one pre-natal RC cow were involved in this study. Ten pre-natal RC cows from each of 10 farmers having six months pregnancy and between 2 and 3 parities were selected. The experiment was carried out in Satkania Upazila of Chittagong district of Bangladesh for a period of three months from April 2010 to June 2010. The owner offered feeds to their cows. Animals were fed in stall. The offered feeds and leftover feeds were weighted and recorded daily. The cows were weighed individually at weekly interval and recorded regularly. The intake of total dry matter (DM), metabolizable energy (ME) and crude protein (CP) were 3.39 kg, 27.49 MJ and 279 g per cow per day, whereas, the DM, ME and CP requirements were 4.89 kg, 39.0 MJ and 454g, per cow per day, respectively. The deficiency of DM, ME and CP were 1.50 kg, 12.11 MJ and 189 g, per cow per day, respectively. The total live weight gain of pre-natal RC cows was 14.50 kg. The calf’s birth weight was 10.95 kg. The going experiment revealed that the nutritional status of pre-natal Red Chittagong cows was negative balance.
Highlights
The three major Challenges facing the developing world today are the alleviation of poverty, meeting current and future needs and preserve genetic resources to ensure sustainability
Nutritive values of feed staffs are determined by the chemical composition
The chemical composition does not give the values of total available nutrient in a feed rather than provides information of nutrient concentration
Summary
The three major Challenges facing the developing world today are the alleviation of poverty, meeting current and future needs and preserve genetic resources to ensure sustainability. Livestock products are crucial in this regard providing food (milk and meat) of high nutritive value. Insufficient supply of feeds throughout the year in tropical countries is a major limitation to ruminant production where the livestock population is high. This is because the demand of food crop production for human consumption reduces the use of land for grazing and forage production. Under these situations, the supplement diet is needed to offer otherwise the livestock productivity cannot be improved.
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