Effects Of Different Levels Of Nutrition On The Milking Capacity Of Lactigenous Water Buffaloes

Sixty healthy lactating water buffaloes were divided into five groups according to their weight, the amount of the milk yield in last month and close lactating period. Each group was feed on a different concentrated rations to study their requirement of energy, protein, calcium and phosphorus during the lactating period and to find the best of the five concentrated rations. The animals were feed on the silage consisted of cornstalk and pennisetum purpureum, freely intake. For lactating buffaloes, the results showed: (1) The best of the five prescriptions of concentrated rations is composed of metabolic energy 14.2MJ/kg and crude protein 13.2% which cause the highest amount of lactating yield and shows the best effects in lactating regression curve. No significant differences of milk quality between all the trial buffaloes were observed (P>0.05). (2) The digestibility of dry matter and diet energy was 66.10% and 66.71%, the metabolic rate of general energy intake and digestible energy intake was 48.13% and 77.55% respectively, the utilization rate of metabolic energy for milk production was 36.66%; the digestibility of diet protein was 71.61%, the utilization rate of digestible protein for milk production was 39.45%, the rate of conversion of nitrogen intake is 31.79%, the requirement of digestible protein for milk production of 1 kg 4% FCM was 86.78g; the equation to calculate crude protein requirement(CPR) was:CPR(g/d)=10.62W^0.75(kg) + 86.82FCM(kg/d).where W^0.75=metabolic weight (3) the digestibility of calcium and phosphorus was 51.20% and 46.30%; the equation to calculate the requirement of calcium(CaR) and phosphorus(PR) was: CaR(g/d) =0.5262W(kg)+2.24FCM(kg/d); PR(g/d)=0.1901W(kg)+2.11FCM(kg/d), where W=body weight.