THE CATALYTIC EFFECT OF SUPPLEMENTATION OF PROTEIN MEALS ON UTILIZATION OF RICE STRAW POULTRY DROPPINGS RICE BRAN DIET IN BUFFALOS

Four graded Murrah (Bubalus bubalis) bull calves (198.5 +/- 3.0 kg) fi tted with permanent rumen cannulae were used in a 4 X 4 latin square d esign to study the effect of supplementation of protein meals viz., gr oundnut cake (D-2), soyabean meal (D-3) or fish meal (D-4) at 100 g ea ch to caged poultry droppings (CPD)-molasses-deoiled rice bran (DORB)- mineral (1810 g) mixture (D-1) and ad lib rice straw on in sacco rumen degradability of rice straw, voluntary feed intake, nutrient utilizat ion and rumen fermentation pattern. Rumen degradation characteristics of dry matter (DM) and neutral detergent fibre (NDF) of rice straw (RS ) and DM and crude protein (CP) of protein meals were described by fit ting the in sacco data to the exponential equation p = a + b(1 - e(-cl )). Rumen environment created by groundnut cake (GNC), soyabean meal ( SBM) and fish meal (FM) supplementation increased (P < 0.10) the rate of DM degradability (c) of straw by 23.4%, 27.6% and 15.8%, respective ly. Effective protein degradability of protein meals revealed that GNC protein was highly rumen degradable (93.2%) while FM protein was less degradable (49.2%) with SBM protein being intermediate (82.1%). Rates of protein degradability of GNC, SBM and FM were 0.1927, 0.2399 and 0 .0720, respectively. Protein meal supplementation non-significantly in creased rice straw and total DM intake (DMI) and significantly increas ed the DMI as a percentage of body weight (P < 0.05) and per kilogram of metabolic body size (P < 0.10). Voluntary DMI of buffaloes per kilo gram W-0.75 was 81.9, 88.9, 89.6 and 91.0 g for D-1, D-2, D-3 and D-4, respectively. The apparent digestibilities of DM, OM, CP, NDF, acid d etergent fibre (ADF) and cellulose were increased (P < 0.01) due to su pplementation of protein meal. It further increased the consumption of digestible crude protein (DCP) (P < 0.01), metabolizable energy (ME) and DOM (P < 0.05) and N retention (P < 0.01) of buffaloes kept on RS diet. Animals fed FM diet had lower urinary N excretion and higher (P < 0.01) N retention. Rumen NH3-N concentration was significantly lower (P < 0.01) in animals fed D-4 while animals fed D-3 or D-4 had signif icantly higher (P < 0.01) total volatile fatty acid (TVFA) concentrati on. It is concluded that supplementation of RS-CPD based diet with var ious protein meals improved the performance of buffaloes with FM prote in being superior in comparison with protein from GNC or SBM.