Traditional feed resources are getting scarce because of rangeland degradation, water shortage and increasing livestock population size, mainly in dry areas. The need to overcome the feeding problem has marginalized the effect of these feeds on milk quality; although this is a key for acceptability of new feeding alternatives.
Syria has known severe droughts the last years, driving the farmers to use unusual forages and shrubs available in the area. However, some alternatives are still underutilized. Most of these alternatives contain anti-nutritional compounds, which could reduce their palatability and digestibility and some of them are rich in ether extract, mainly linoleic and linolenic acid.
Feeding value of local crop residues and agro-industrial by- products in Syrian Awassi ewes, and their effect on milk
yield and quality
Souheila Abbeddou
1,3,*, Hans Dieter Hess
2, Barbara Rischkowsky
3and Michael Kreuzer
11ETH Zurich, Institute of Animal Sciences, Switzerland.
*souheila.abbeddou@inw.agrl.ethz.ch
2Agroscope Liebefel-Posieux, Posieux, Switzerland.
3ICARDA, Aleppo, Syria.
• Evolution in milk yield marked by a non significant difference among the groups during the whole experiment period.
• Within groups, the traditional feed and the atriplex group presented a more stable milk yield over time.
• Milk fat increased and reached the maximum in the third week for the traditional group, followed significantly by the atriplex, the olive leaves and the lentil straw group.
• Olive leaves and atriplex foliage did not suppress either milk yield or its fat and protein content.
The same is true for the two ago-industrial by-products; olive cake and tomato pomace.
• The anti-nutritional compounds were of minor importance when the energy and protein levels were balanced.
• In this case, these alternatives could be used successfully.
• Sensory attributes of milk and milk products need to be investigated.
• Sixty 3-4 years old lactating fat tailed Awassi ewes weighing 51.0±6.5 kg.
• Per diet, ten ewes were allocated considering days-in-milk, milk yield and fat and protein contents.
• Diets were balanced for energy and protein .
• The six experimental diets were composed as follows (g/kg diet dry matter)*:
* Individually supplemented with 20 g mineral-vitamins mixture/ head and with urea (g/kg dry matter) as 8.0, 12.0, 0.0, 5.0, 19.0 and 16.0 for traditional, olive leaves, lentil straw, atriplex, olive cake and tomato pomace diets, respectively.
• During 50 days, 2.5 kg DM feed were offered and water ad-libitum.
• Daily milk yield was recorded and morning milk was sampled for laboratory analysis on a weekly basis.
• Milk protein increased from day 0 to reach a maximum in the third week for the traditional feed group, the olive leaves and the lentil straw groups; and in the fifth week for the other three groups
Test the feeding value of diets containing underutilized local forages and agro-industrial byproducts through their effect on milk yield and quality of lactating Awassi ewes.
Main Results
Materials and Methods Objective of the Study
Introduction
Conclusions
Diet Traditional Olive
leaves
Lentil straw Atriplex foliage
Olive cake
Tomato pomace
Barley straw 300 – – – 200 300
Olive leaves – 300 – – – –
Lentil straw – – 300 – – –
Atriplex foliage – – – 300 – –
Olive cake – – – – 300 –
Tomato pomace – – – – – –
Wheat grain – – – – 200
Sugar beet pulp 300 300 200 300 – 50
Wheat bran 100 200 200 200 – –
Cotton seed meal 200 100 200 100 100 –
Molasses 100 100 100 100 100 100
