Strategic Roughage Feeding to the Crossbred Dairy Heifers

The experiment was conducted on crossbred heifer using roughage namely-rice straw (Oryza sativa), soybean hay (Glycine max), para grass (Brachiaria mutica) and german grass (Echinochloa crus-galli) for monitoring the changes in their performance. Twelve crossbred heifers were equally divided into four groups-T1, T2, T3 and T4. All heifers were supplied with 1 Kg concentrate mixture/h/d. Only the concentrate mixture supplied to T1 group contained calfostonic animal feed premix which was supplied @20 g/h/d. Heifers of T1 group received rice straw @4.3 Kg/h/d; T2 group was fed rice straw and green grass @2.85 and @6.8 Kg/h/d, respectively; T3 group got only green grass @20.35 Kg/h/d and T4 group was supplied with green grass and soybean hay @16.3 and @0.91 Kg/h/d, respectively. Considering all the data recorded, supply of green grass as roughage source, especially leguminous and non-leguminous grass together was found advantageous in heifer feeding. However, rice straw supplemented by vitamin-mineral premix could be used during scarcity period.