Veterinary Archives, Vol. 78 No. 5, 2008.
Original scientific paper
The use of bat guano in the improvement of the nutritive value of poor quality roughage fed to ruminants in Tanzania
Paul Sebastian Mlay
; Department of Physiology, Biochemistry, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Morogoro, Tanzania
Frederick Sagamiko
; Department of Physiology, Biochemistry, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Morogoro, Tanzania
Abstract
An experiment was carried out on six rumen fistulated cows to determine the potential of bat guano in the treatment (GU) of poor quality roughage in comparison with the use of urea (UR) alkali from “Magadi” (MG) with untreated straws as a control (C). One kg DM of rice straws were sprayed with one litre each of either 5% Urea, or “Magadi”, or Bats’ guano suspensions. The treated straws were kept in covered plastic buckets for 14 days after this, followed by sun drying, then ground by laboratory hammer to pass through a 2.5mm screen. One gram was weighed into Dacron bags (36×36) μm pore size measuring 7.5×10.0 cm. The open ends of the bags were tightly secured on a rubber bong and incubated in the rumen of cows (in triplicates) for 0, 2, 4, 8, 12, 24, 48, 72, 96, and 120 hours. Samples were withdrawn according to the incubation schedule and immediately deepfrozen at -150 C. Finally the samples were manually washed until the washing water was clear and oven dried at 1000C for 24 hours. The residues in the bags were weighed as the DM left and the percentage degradation for each sample calculated. The treated straws had significantly higher P (<0.05) % DM disappearance for most incubation hours compared to the control. The cost of materials required to treat 1kg DM of straws was cheapest with bats’ guano (1.25 Tsh), moderate with “Magadi” (1.50 Tsh) and highest with Urea (22.50 Tsh). It is hereby
concluded that it is possible to improve the nutritive value of straws for ruminants by using bats’ guano, which is cheap, locally available and easy to apply.
Keywords
bat guano; urea; “Magadi”; straws
Hrčak ID:
28918
URI
Publication date:
20.10.2008.
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