Kariuki, John N. (1998) The Potential of Improving Napier Grass under Smallholder Dairy Farmers' Conditions in Kenya. Masters thesis, University of Nairobi.
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Abstract
The effect of feeding heifers young napier grass (7-weeks regrowth) or old napier (16-weeks regrowth) supplemented with either wilted Desmodium intortum, Sesbania sesban or dried Calliandra calothyrsus leaves on intake and live weight changes was evaluated in a 67-day trial. Thirty-two Friesian heifers with an average live weight of 271 kg and 1 6.8 months old were randomly allocated to the four diets. The diets were either ad libitum young napier grass or old napier grass supplemented with 25% each of Sesbania, Desmodium or Calliandra. There was a significant difference in chemical composition between the young and old napier grass. Significant differences (P<0.05) were also observed on intake of dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP) and neutral detergent fibre (NDF). The total DM intake were 2.77, 2.86, 2.62 kg per 100 kg live weight (LW) for Desmodium, Calliandra and Sesbania supplemented diets respectively. A DM intake of 3.11 kg per 100 kg LW was observed on the heifers fed young napier grass. The mean weight gains were 369 g per day for young napier grass and 235, 270 and 224 g per day for old napier grass supplemented with Desmodium, Calliandra and Sesbania respectively. It was concluded that supplementing old napier grass prevented loss of weight and sustained some weight gain. Key words: Forage supplementation, intake, growth, napier, heifers.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Forage supplementation, intake, growth, napier, heifers. |
| Subjects: | S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General) |
| Divisions: | Africana |
| Depositing User: | Geoffrey Obatsa |
| Date Deposited: | 05 Aug 2016 09:05 |
| Last Modified: | 05 Aug 2016 09:20 |
| URI: | http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/1064 |
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