On-farm appraisal of urea treated straw feeding to lactating buffaloes as means to climate resilience

Abstract

On-farm testing and demonstration of urea treatment for improving the utilization of wheat straw was conducted in semi arid condition at village Kadesara Kalan (Lalitpur district) on eight lactating nondescript (local) buffaloes during summer season. Wheat straw was treated with 8% urea solution using standard procedure. Moisture content of treated straw increased to around 28% and caused an intensive ammonia smell at stacks opening after 21 days. Ammoniation of wheat straw improved the crude protein content from 3.16% to 8.57%. Feeding of treated straw to lactating buffaloes improved total dry matter intake by 14.78%. Overall milk yield of urea treated straw fed animals was 22.3% more than the untreated animals.