Influence of eliminating rumen ciliates on growth, nutrient intake, its utilization and rumen fermentation pattern in goats fed straw-based diet

The effect of defaunation on growth rate of kids, nutrient utilization incl uding rumen fermentation pattern was studied by allocating 8 male kids of B arbari breed in 2 groups of 4 each for 130 days. Apart from growth rate and rumen fermentation studies a metabolism trial was also conducted in mid-ex perimental period to study the nutrient utilization. Reduced ammonia nitrog en concentration (7.00 +/- 1.52 to 5.16 +/- 0.48 mg/100 ml SRL) and increas ed TVFA production (2.98 +/- 0.56 to 3.58 +/- 0.30 meq/litre) were deserved in faunated and defaunated animals. Marginal (not significant at P > 0.05) reduction in digestibility or organic nutrients in defaunated animals coul d not influence the growth rate and feed conversion efficiency adversely. A pparently the growth rate and feed conversion efficiency of defaunated anim als improved over faunated ones. Thus, defaunation technique could be utili zed to improve the productivity of growing goats under low protein diets.