Study On Energy Requirement And Metabolism Of Heifer Dairy Buffaloes

Twelve heifer dairy buffaloes in 12-month-old (averaging 220kg inbody weight) were used in a randomized complete block design. Animalswere divided into 3 groups based on body weight and breed. The wholeexperiment covered 2 feeding experiment, 2 digestion-metabolism experim--ents,2 respiratory trial and 1 fasting-metabolism experiment. Each feedingexperiment lasted for 30 days. Respiratory trial and digestion-metabolizability trial were carried out during the middle term of everyfeeding experiment period respectively. The period of each respiratory trialand digestion- metabolism trial was 3 days and 7 days respectively. Toheifer dairy buffalo, the results showed that:(1)the average digestibility ofdry matter was 69.83%;the average digestible energy of diets was 69.34%;the metabolizable rate of grossl energy intake and digestible energy was57.15% and 82.52% respectively; (3)the digestibility of dietary nitrogenwas 65.80%;the retention of dietary nitrogen was 31.62%; (2)The heatproduction was 601.173KJ/kgW^0.75.d^-1; The fasting heat production was332.063kJ/kgW^0.75.d^-1; So heat increment was 269.110kJ/kgW^0.75.d^-1; themethane energy was about 9%-10% of gross energy intake. Therequirement of net energy of heifer dairy buffaloes could be calculated byequation: NE=564.724 kJ/kgW^0.75.d^-1.