Vol. 9, Special Issue 2 (2024)

Author(s): YA Desai, SV Shah, YG Patel, PM Lunagariya and PJ Chaudhari

Abstract: Farmers often neglect watering and feeding calves because they are reluctant to allocate their limited resources during the calves' non-productive growing phase. The current study was planned and conducted on twenty-four crossbred calves over a period of 98 days to observe the effects of watering frequency and feed on feeding cost and feed efficiency. The calves were randomly assigned to four watering frequency (T₁, T₂, T₃ & T₄) and two feeding treatments (F₁&F₂), a total of eight treatments, on the basis of sex and body weight. Four different watering frequency containing ad lib., once a day, twice a day and thrice a day were offered to T₁, T₂, T₃ and T₄ treatment group calves, respectively. Within each watering frequency treatment, half of the calves were offered 50:50 mixture of legume (soyabean) and cereal (wheat) straw (F₁) and another half of Jowar hay (F₂) as dry roughage. In all treatments, fixed quantity of concentrate and green Hybrid Napier were also offered to calves. Cost of feeding under different treatments was calculated from daily records of daily feed consumption and by considering the procurement cost of feeds and fodders. In respect of watering frequency, feed cost was significantly (p<0.05) lower in T₂ followed by T₃, T₁ and T₄, however, the value of T₁ was at par with T₃ and T₄ groups. The feed cost (Rs./kg BW gain) significantly (p<0.05) decreased to the tune of 27.59%, 22.83% and 27.98% in T₁, T₃ and T₄ as compared to T₂, respectively. Daily feed cost (Rs./head/d) increased significantly on feeding Jowar hay but feed cost (Rs./kg BW gain) reduced by 15.19% in calves. There was net saving of Rs. 22.22/ kg BW gain on feeding Jowar hay. In conclusion, ad lib. or thrice a day watering frequency and feeding Jowar hay are superior with respect to feed efficiency and economical (lower) cost of feeding per unit weight gain in crossbred calves.

DOI: 10.22271/veterinary.2024.v9.i2Se.1318