Evaluation of Roughage and Agricultural Residue Quality for Dairy Farmers in Sakaeo Province

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the qualities of the roughage feed given to dairy cattle by the dairy farmers in Sakaeo province. A sample group of 250 farmers were randomly selected from the population of 675 farmers. The data were collected by interview. The statistics used for analysis were frequency and percentage. The roughage was collected randomly from dairy cattle rearing farms during summer, March-May 2017 and analyzed for chemical composition. The results showed that most of the interviewed farmers had dairy farming experience of between 11 and 20 years and owned their own land of area approximately 30 rai/household.
The proportion of dairy cows was higher than that of dairy heifers. Most of farmers fed their dairy cattle by separate feed and they used rice straw as an important roughage source in the summer because the yield of roughage from foraging was insufficient for the cows. The chemical analysis of the rice straw revealed that it was of low quality in terms of protein but was high in cell wall content. Napier grass had the highest protein content (7.32%) and lowest cell wall content (66.57%); (P<0.05). On the other hand, Paspalum atratum grass had the lowest protein content (5.31%); (P<0.05). The agricultural residue that the farmers usually utilized as other sources of roughage included soybean hull, cassava peel, corn cob, corn husk silage and sugarcane top, of which soybean hull had the highest protein 10.63% (P<0.05) and cassava peel had the lowest protein 1.63% (P<0.05)