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The effects of urea treatment, urea supplementation and coarse milling on the nutrient intake of sheep fed barley straw.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2017

A. Termanini ,
A. Goodchild ,
T. Treacher ,
S. Rihawi  and
E. Owen
A. Termanini
Affiliation:
International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, P.O. Box 5466, Aleppo, Syria.
A. Goodchild
Affiliation:
International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, P.O. Box 5466, Aleppo, Syria.
T. Treacher
Affiliation:
International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, P.O. Box 5466, Aleppo, Syria.
S. Rihawi
Affiliation:
International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, P.O. Box 5466, Aleppo, Syria.
E. Owen
Affiliation:
Department of Agriculture, University of Reading, P.O. Box 236, Reading, RG6 2AT, UK.
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Extract

Farmers in the Middle East have traditionally chopped cereal straw during threshing to produce tibn for feeding to sheep. They say this reduces feed selection and waste, and have recently developed hammer mills with large screens to make a similar product from combine-harvested straw. Some nutritional advisers have recommended urea or ammonia treatment of straw as an alternative to (or in addition to) this. These processes improve digestibility and nitrogen content. The nitrogen content of the ration may also be improved by supplementation using a smaller quantity of urea (Greenhalgh 1984).

Coarse milling is said to allow particles to flow rapidly from the rumen, to reduce rumen fermentation and to increase the quantity of nutrients digested in the small intestine. Part of the fibre that escapes the rumen is fermented in the large intestine. But because digestion of the microbial protein formed in the large intestine is less efficient than in the rumen, coarse milling is likely to increase animals’ protein requirements.

Type
Small Ruminant Production
Information
Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Production (1972) , Volume 1993: Winter meeting , March 1993 , pp. 119
Copyright
Copyright © The British Society of Animal Production 1993

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References

References.

Greenhalgh, J.F.D. 1984. Upgrading crop and agricultural by-products for animal production. In Gilchrist, F.M.C. and Mackie, R.I. (eds), Herbivore Nutrition in the Subtropics and Tropics, pp. 167–181. Science Press, Craighall, RSA.Google Scholar
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