Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Ward, Stephanie

Committee Member

Rude, Brian J.

Committee Member

Blanton, John

Date of Degree

5-7-2016

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Animal Science

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Department

Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences

Abstract

This study was conducted to measure the intake; nutritive value and digestibility of peanut hay (Arachis hypogaea L.). Fourteen Holstein heifers (BW= 408 plus/minus 32 kg; Age = 15.4 months plus/minus 0.5) were randomly allocated to two diets: peanut hay (PH) and corn silage (CS) adlibtum for 26 days. The PH consisted of 66:34 forage: concentrate (F:C) and CS diet contained 57:43 F:C ratio. Peanut hay at 91.8% DM contained 8% CP, 64% NDF, 51.9% ADF and 8 % ash. DMI and CP was not different across the treatment diets (P>0.05). NDF and ADF intake was different between the diets with PH being greater (P<0.01). Feed Efficiency using the feed to gain ratio was different across the diets (P<0.0001). Dry matter digestibility was 75.37% for CS diet and 68.53% for PH diet. Peanut hay basal diets formulated to contain low F:C ratio can increase growth in dairy heifers.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/17745

Comments

dairy heifers||peanut hay

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