Effect of substituting concentrate mixture by Urea Molasses Mineral Block on protozoal production rates in Murrah buffalo calves

S P Tiwari, K Kumari, U K Mishra, M K Gendley and R Gupta

Department of Animal Nutrition, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry,Durg - 491 001 (Chhattisgarh), India
drsptiwari@gmail.com

Abstract 

Fifteen rumen fistulated male Murrah calves (1-1¹/₂ yrs) were divided into 5 groups of 3 each. Group I was fed rice straw alone with 40 g mineral mixture daily. Group II was provided concentrate mixture to meet the requirements at maintenance level while in groups III, IV and V concentrate mixture was replaced by three types Urea Molasses Mineral Block (UMMB) 'Ex', 'C' and 'D' offered free choice, respectively.

Dry matter intake (kg/day) was significantly lower in group I as compared to other groups due to low palatability of feeds. Non-availability of starch lowers the production rate of protozoa in group I. Supplementation of nutrients in the form of UMMB licks increased the protozoa production rates, however, the values were lower than in group II (concentrate fed). Higher values in the group II (9.1±0.6) were probably due to the availability of starch from the ingredients which was not sufficiently available from UMMB.

Hence, UMMB supplementation of straw based diets decreased the protozoa production rates.

Key words: concentrate, licks, palatability, starch, supplementation

Introduction 

Urea and molasses both are well known constituents for improving the utilization of straw (poor quality roughage) based diets (Campling et al 1962; Gupta et al 1970). However, these are not adopted as a common practice by farmers because of the constraints associated with their use. Urea toxicity (Mehra et al 1987) due to improper mixing and limited availability of the molasses are major constraints (Preston  1972). To overcome these constraints UMMB is formed by mixing urea, molasses with some protein source and mineral mixture. These blocks (Mangat Ram and Kunju 1986) are being used, to replace concentrate mixture at maintenance level. The supplementation of UMMB caused rapid DM digestion due to effective colonization by the ruminal microflora (Manget Ram 1989). It is reported that UMMB based rations (Kunju 1986) resulted into considerably higher rates of bacterial production as compared to UMMB unsupplemented diet. In contrast, protozoan production rate was about halved in UMMB- supplemented groups when compared with concentrate – supplemented groups. This could be due to partial defaunating effect of either UMMB lick ingredients in general or sodium bentonite in particular (Manget Ram 1989; Mohini 1991). In the present study, the effect of UMMB feeding on protozoal production rate was studied.

Materials and methods  

Fifteen rumen fistulated Murrah calves (1-1¹/₂ yrs) were divided into 5 groups of 3 each in a randomized block design. Group I was fed rice straw ad libitum with mineral mixture at the rate of 40 g/d. Group II was provided rice straw ad libitum and concentrate mixture (ground nut cake 27, maize 30, wheat bran 40, mineral mixture 2 and salt 1 part) to meet the protein and energy requirements (NRC 2001) at maintenance level. In groups III, IV, and V concentrate mixture was replaced with three types of UMMB namely 'Ex', 'C' and 'D' free choice, respectively. The composition of various blocks is given in Table 1.

The UMMB was developed by “cold process” technology in which molasses was added into the mixture without any heating to avoid the use of heavy and expensive equipments. The ingredients (Table 1) were mixed in the following order: water, urea, salt, mineral mixture, calcite powder, sodium bentonite, molassess, cotton seed meal and ground nut extraction. Water was added at the rate of one third of the weight of calcite powder and sodium bentonite mix to wet it completely. The mixture was then transferred to specially designed moulds to form blocks. The blocks were allowed to settle for a period of 24 hours.

The chemical composition of feeds is given in Table 2.

After 90 days of preliminary feeding, the ruminal protozoal status of the animals was studied by taking total counts of protozoa (Langar et al 1968) consecutively for 3 days at 0, 2, 4 and 6 hour post feeding. DM intake and water intake were recorded daily. For estimation of protozoal production rates, daily ration was divided in 12 equal parts and offered at 2 hour intervals to achieve a near steady state in the rumen. Two hourly feeding was started 48 hour before infusion of ¹⁴C-choline. ¹⁴C-methyl choline was used to estimate protozoa production rate. Protozoa were first label1ed by incubating ¹⁴C-choline with freshly drawn rumen liquor from individual animals followed by separation (Leng 1982) of labeled protozoa from incubated rumen liquor. Labeled protozoa were suspended in the fresh rumen liquor and infused in the rumen. Samples of rumen liquor were collected after 2 hour of infusion at hourly intervals for 7 hours. From the collected rumen liquor samples of protozoa were isolated and radioactivity was counted using scintillation f1uid (Singh and Leng 1987). Protozoal pool and production rates were also calculated (Leng et al 1981). Data was analyzed statistically (Snedecor and Cochran 1987).

Results and discussion  

Depending upon the results of earlier experiments the composition of UMMB was modified. Increase in protein in the form of ground nut cake and cotton seed meal increased the nitrogen per cent in UMMB 'C' and 'D' and total ash content decreased because of the decrease in the mineral mixture and salt in the licks. Ground nut cake was included to provide the peptide links and carbohydrates which results in better environment for microbial growth. Body weights of the animals in group I reduced because of the non- availability of sufficient nutrients mainly nitrogen and starch, however, no differences were observed among groups II, III, IV and V. Total dry matter intake (kg/d) was also higher significantly (P<0.01) in the groups supplemented with concentrate mixture or UMMB as compared to group I (Table 3).

Among groups II, III, IV and V, group III showed higher intake as compared to other groups, though non-significantly. However, dry matter intake kg/100 kg body wt. and g/kg w^0.75 were not different significantly among groups II, III, IV, and V.  

Protozoal counts are depicted in Table 4. Total counts were significantly lower in group I as compared to other groups at all time intervals.

Numbers of protozoa were lower before feeding and increased with time after feeding irrespective of the treatment effect (Leng et al 1981). Among supplemented groups (concentrate mixture or UMMB) the protozoa number was significantly (P<0.05) higher in group II (concentrate supplemented ) as compared to groups IV and V. Increased availability of soluble carbohydrates increased protozoal population in concentrate and UMMB supplemented groups (Meyer et al 1986).  Lower population in UMMB fed groups was probably due to less availability of nutrients or the presence of some chemicals (bentonite) which is reported to affect the protozoan population and increase wool production in sheep (Forster and Leng 1988).

Though the average dose of ¹⁴C-choline through labeled protozoa infused in the different groups was not different significantly, the values of pool size of Protozoal N (g) were significantly (P<0.01) higher in the supplemented groups. Protozoa production rates were significantly higher in group II than other groups while no significant differences were observed among groups III, IV and V (Table 5).

When production rates are depicted in terms of per kg digestible organic matter intake a similar trend was observed. Supplementation of nutrients in the form of concentrate mixture or urea molasses block to rice straw alone had significantly (P<0.01) improved the protozoal production rates.

Inclusion of UMMB in the diet of rice straw alone had improved the rumen environment which was clearly depicted in the increase of DMI. Inclusion of urea as such (Campling et al 1962) and in the form of UMBB (Tiwari 1988) licks had shown an increase in DMI in cattle. Intake of both total DM as well as that of straw increased on increase of nutrients availability from UMMB. Straw intake was still higher as compared to the group given concentrate mixture that is because UMMB dry matter was only 10 per cent of the total DMI while concentrate provided about 40 per cent. However, DMI/100 kg body wt was not different significantly. The increase in the protozoal population as well as their production rate was also attributed to the enhanced availability of nutrients. Due to lack of sufficient soluble carbohydrate usually on roughage diets, the biomass of microbes was reported approximately l/10^th of that observed on mixed diets (Jouany 1988).

On feeding wheat straw alone, the protozoa production rate was 1/12^th of the production rates observed on mixed diets by another group of workers (Manget Ram 1989; Mohini 1991). The availability of short chain dextrin (Denvis et al 1983), fructosans (Broderick and Craig 1980), saccharose (Garg et al 1992) and molasses (Meyer et al 1986) are known to increase the protozoal population. Although the sugars available from UMMB in groups III, IV and V were sufficient but the availability of starch as such was lower than that available through concentrate mixture in group II which could explain the low protozoal production rate in UMMB fed groups. Similar trend was also observed in cattle (Denvis et al 1983). However, the values were lower as compared to that obtained in buffalo. Feeding of sugar cane based diet also reduced the protozoa production rate in cattle (2.8 and 7.5 g N/d) as reported earlier (Garg et al 1992; Leng et al 1984).These results also showed the importance of starch granules for protozoa production in the rumen. However, bentonite had also been reported to affect the protozoal status (Forster and Leng 1988) which was used as a binder in manufacturing of UMMB.

Thus, these results depicted that the use of UMMB in place of concentrate mixture can maintain the animals without showing any adverse effect on dry matter intake. However, it also caused semi defaunation which further provided the benefits of defaunation.

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Received 11 May 2008; Accepted 4 August 2008; Published 6 November 2008

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