Journal of Animal Feed Science and Technology

Growing understanding of the relationship between diet, specific food ingredients and health is leading to new insights into the effect of food components on physiological function and health. This awareness has moved consumers to become more health-conscious, driving a trend towards healthy and nutritious foods with additional health promoting functions, such as functional foods. Goats are important component of livestock industry having adaptability to harsh climates which make them suitable for landless and marginal farmers. The importance of goats as providers around the world of essential food in meat and dairy products has been discussed and documented. The milk is affordable, available and nutritious hence a wide variation of knowledge on the nutrition and hypollergic characteristics of goat milk could promote the direct use of the milk in the nutrition of orphans and vulnerable children.

Keywords: Goat Milk Functional Foods Fatty Acid Composition Nutrition Technological Quality. 

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of seabuckthorn (SBT) leaves, cake and pomace alone and in combination on broilers production. Trial was conducted in 192 day old chicks which were divided into 8 groups with 3 replications having 8 chicks in each. Chicks were offered conventional rations in control (T0) group and replacing 6,20,10,26,30,16 and 36 percent CP by SBT leaves, cake and pomace, leaves+cake, cake+pomace, pomace+leaves, leaves+cake+pomace, respectively.The feed intake, overall body weight gain and feed conversion ratio were recorded throughout the experimental period. The overall broiler performance did not significantly improved in respect of GW, FI and FCR by the inclusion of SBT leaves, cake and pomace alone or in combination in the feed. The inclusion of SBT leaves, cake and pomace in the feed had no effect on dressing percentage, mortality and serum mineral levels. From the overall study it was concluded that there was no effect of the different test feeds on the broiler production by feeding the sea-buckthorn leaves, cake and pomace alone or in combination.

Keywords: Seabuckthorn Leaves Cake Pomace Poultry Broiler Production Protein Replacement 

Aims: A study was made to evaluate the effect of feeding different doses of probiotics on the milk yield and its composition of crossbred cows. Settings and Design: Twenty lactating crossbred cows were taken for the experiment and were randomly divided into four groups of five cows each. T0 (control group) cows were not fed with probiotics. T1, T2 and T3 (treatment groups) cows were fed with 10 gm, 15 gm and 20 gm probiotics per day. Methods and Material: Cows were fed basal diet along with production ration. Milk sample collected weekly and corrected for 4% FCM. Milk, fat % and SNF were analyzed by using milk analyzer. Statistical analysis used: In the present study, mean as a measure of central tendency and the standard error as a measure of random error were employed for the statistical analysis. The student ‘t’ test (P= 0.05) was used to know the significant variation between two groups. Results: Significant (Pd”0.05) differences were observed in milk yield of cows fed multi-stain probiotics as compared to the control. The average milk production (4% FCM) was highest in 20gm probiotics supplemented cows is 7.89±0.21, followed by 7.05±0.19 and 6.52±0.07 in cows supplemented with 15gm and 10gm probiotics respectively, as compared to the control animals (5.73±0.06). In T0,T1, T2 and T3 group cows the increase in fat percentage was observed to be 4.24+0.03, 4.45+0.02, 4.52+0.09 and 4.78+0.08 respectively during the trial period where as mean SNF percentage of T0, T1, T2 and T3 increased to 8.01+0.14, 8.07+0.04, 8.23+0.08 and 8.75+0.08 percent respectively. Conclusions: It can be concluded that use of multi-stain probiotics is cost effective and increased the milk production by 29.13 % in case of 20gm probiotics supplementation followed by 15gm (17.70%) and 10gm supplementation (8.31%), respectively, in lactating crossbred cows. After supplementation of probiotics, mean fat percentage increase of T1, T2 and T3 increased to 2.06, 5.36 and 10.65 percent respectively were as mean SNF percentage increase of T1, T2 and T3 increased to 0.75, 2.24 and 7.89 percent respectively. The net profit was estimated as Rs. 83.14, 85.43, 86.84and 93.15 per cow per day respectively in T0, T1, T2 and T3 groups and calculated cost-benefit ratio was 1: 1.42, 1: 1.47, 1: 1.53 and 1: 1.60 in T0, T1, T2 and T3 respectively.

Keywords: Probiotics Milk Yield Milk Composition Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Lactobacillus Acidophilus Lactobacillus Sporogenes Bacillus Subtilis and Bacillus Licheniformis. 

Nutritionally balanced feeding is the most important for economic production of poultry. So, minimization of feed cost would be a great achievement for poultry farmers if the unconventional feed resources are introduced as the replacer of protein source, Nutritionally, SBT cake is very rich in proteins, fat, amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Very little systematic and scientific work has been conducted to study the effects of feeding SBT cake to the poultry. Hence, the present study was envisaged to see the effect of replacement of CP of conventional feed of layers with the protein of SBT to observe the effect on quality traits of eggs and egg production. An experiment was conducted to study the effect of SBT cake on layers. The trial was conducted in 360 BV-300 layer chicks, where conventional rations in control (S0) group replaced with 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 per cent of CP by SBT cake CP in treatment groups S10, S20, S30, S40 and S50 respectively. The egg production percent, egg mass of layers were higher in S20 group, where 20 per cent CP of conventional concentrate was replaced with the CP of the SBT cake. FCR in respect of egg mass of the layer was found better in S20 treatment group. It was noticed that, as the level of SBT cake increased beyond 20 per cent. The quality traits of eggs were not affected by replacement of SBT cake at any of the levels. It was revealed that replacement of CP of conventional layer feed with SBT cake CP up-to 20 per cent level was economic for layer production. Looking at the results of present investigations, it is concluded from this study that 20 per cent CP of the traditional concentrate ration can be replaced with the CP of SBT cake in layer birds for a viable and cost effective egg production.

Keywords: Seabuckthorn (SBT) Cake Poultry Birds Layers Egg Production Egg Quality Traits Feed Conversion Ratio. 

Studies on genetic diversity of 28 coconut genotypes from coconut research Station, Veppankulam was evaluated based on 17 traits. Characters studied included both vegetative, inflorescence and fruit/nut characters. Genotypes were grouped into 8 clusters. Tall cultivars were grouped in 4 clusters. Dwarf cultivars resolved into four clusters. The inter cluster distance was highest in the seventh cluster. Andaman Ordinary Dwarf and Chowghat Giant dwarf show distinguishing nut characters constituted a separate cluster. This analysis indicated the possibility of obtaining promising progeny from the parents of divergent clusters. The study also confirmed the distinctiveness of the dwarf and tall varieties. Nut characters were found to be more efficient in assessing genetic divergence. Intercrossing among the genotypes belonging to cluster II and VII was suggested to develop high yielding varieties with other desirable characters.

Keywords: Coconut Varieties Divergence Genetic Distance Tall and Dwarf Varieties.