• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제9권2호
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• pp.127-132
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• 1996

Effects on feed intake, liveweight gain and economic benefits of supplementing lambs with urea molasses blocks, were studied. Forty eight crossbred lambs were divided into 6 groups and assigned randomly to grazing on native pasture (CONT) or along with supplements of Commercial ration (COM) and urea molasses blocks (UMBs) containing two levels of cement and calcium oxide as a binding agent. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant (p<0.01) differences in dry matter (DMI, g/day), crude protein (CPI, g/day) and metabolizable energy (MEI, MJ/day) intakes. Differences in liveweight gain (LWG, g/day), feed conversion ratio (FCR) and net economic benefit of supplementation were also highly variable. The intake of DM, CP and ME varied from 974 to 1002, 66-70 and 7.6-8.4 in lambs supplemented with UMBs, significantly (p<0.01) greater than 848, 52.5 and 5.6 in lambs supplemented with COM or FCR and net economic benefits (54.3; 57.8; 17.1 and 1.96; 2.4) in lambs supplemented with COM and UMB-2, were CONT or supplemented with UMB-1, UMB-3 and UMB-4 respectively. Factors responsible for differences in feed intake, liveweight gain and economic benefits, are discussed.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제4권1호
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• pp.85-90
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• 1991

Weaner heifers were set stocked at 4/ha on a grass-legume pasture in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and either unsupplemented (Control) or for 338 days given daily supplements of one of, rice bran (RB) supplied at 1 kg/animal/d, molasses/urea (MU) or 0.5 RB + 0.5 MU (MURB) the amounts of which were adjusted to give similar energy intakes. There were 20 animals in each treatment. A drought resulted in low pasture availability for about half the supplementation period. The LWG per animal in the MURB treatment was 85 kg above that of the control and this was significantly greater (p < 0.01) than those for MU (62.0 kg) or RB (56.2 kg) although the economics favoured the gains from RB which returned over three times the cost of the supplement. Costs could be reduced by supplementing only at times of maximum undernutrition, but such a strategy is of doubtful value in this situation as there was no compensatory LWG and a similar rate of economic return was maintained throughout the period. The results suggest that additional benefits from the supplementation may be improved reproductive performance and more efficient use of pasture.