effect of different level of concentrate feeding on growth performance during early life in Mehsana buffalo calves 

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of compound concentrate mixture and cotton seed cake (CSC) feeding rn _Mehsan~ female calves of 3 to 6 months age at Livestock Research Station, s.o.A.U .. Sardarkrushinagar situated in semi-arid region of Banaskantha district of North Gujarat 11aving latitude of 24.35 North and longitude of 72.59 East. The experiment was conducted on sixty-seven clinically healthy _growing female buffalo calves of 3 months age and categorized randomly into three treatment groups 1.e. group-I (n=22), group-II (n=23) and group-Ill (n=22) on the basis of bodyweight and age. The treatment groups were given accelerated feeding as Group-I (N=22) fed 0.5 kg compound concentrate and 0.850 kg cotton seed cake, Group II (N=23) fed 1.5 kg compound concentrate and Group Ill (N=22) fed 0.5 kg compound concentrate as per routine ration scale of the station and served as control group for comparison. Observations were recorded for monthly body weights and daily weight gain. The generated data were analyzed as per the standard statistical procedures.The significant {P<0.05) higher weight after experiment was found in both treatment groups (Group-I & II) as compared to control group in the experiment whereas, the significantly (P<0.01) higher weight gain per day (420.00±29.0) during experiment was found in treatment group-II which was fed on compound concentrate mixture followed by group-I (349.50±21 .50) and group-Ill (258.10±19.3), respectively. The difference in weight gain during experiment period was highly significant (P<0.01) between all three groups suggests that the feeding of compound concentrate mixture was effective in weight gain of Mehsana buffalo calves. Therefore, it is concluded from above study that feeding of compound concentrate mixture@ 1.5 kg/day/calf improved