Ruminant Livestock Species Research Articles

Comparison of available and required metabolisable energy (ME) resources for livestock during winter in an agro-pastoral system of the Hindu Kush – Himalayan region of Pakistan

The semi-arid Hindu-Kush-Karakoram-Himalayan region of Pakistan covers 72,000 sq km with a rainfall of 100-400 mm per year5. Limited arable land and water scarcity have made subsistence farming the dominant agro-pastoral farming system. Each household keeps a range of ruminant livestock species such as goats, cattle, sheep, donkeys and yaks their proportion in the herd are 0.53, 0.23, 0.19, 0.03 and 0.02 respectively. In winter, livestock are confined and stall-fed on stored roughages or grazed on marginal lands and fallow agricultural fields close to the villages. The aim of this study was to quantify nutritional inputs in terms of metabolisable energy resources, and to compare these with ME requirements of the animals for maintenance over winter.