Use of research results to formulate a feeding strategy for livestock during the dry seasons in Uganda

F.B. Bareeba and J.S. Mugerwa,
Department of Animal Science,
Makerere University,
P.O. Box 7062,
Kampala, Uganda

Abstract
Introduction
Crop residues
Forage conservation
Use of research results
Conclusion
References

Abstract

Livestock production in Uganda is limited among other factors by feed availability throughout the year. Research so far done has shown the potential of crop residues, molasses/urea blocks and poultry waste as ruminant livestock feedstuffs. These results together with orage conservation in the form of silage can be used to formulate a strategy for livestock feeding during the dry season. The use of these research findings has been limited by the weakness in the extension system in the country.

Introduction

Uganda comprises of a total area of 236,000 km² with an estimated human population of 16 million. The cattle population which reached a peak of 5.5 million in 1978 has declined considerably (Table 1) due to the civil wars and a series of disease outbreaks. About 90% of the livestock population is made up of indigenous species and 95% of the livestock is found on small-scale crop/livestock mixed farms. Efforts are now underway to import cattle and restock the dairy farms and ranches that have in the past lost most of their livestock through civil wars.

Diseases apart, livestock feeds is one of the major factors limiting animal production in the country. An overwhelming majority of the ruminant animals depend wholly on grazing and crop residues for the quantity and quality of herbage available. The climate is characterized by two rainy seasons during which periods there is luxuriant growth of vegetation and two dry seasons when pasturage is scarce. Supplementation with compounded feeds is, therefore, necessary to maintain the animals and sustain production during the dry season.

The country is constantly faced with problems related to formulation of balanced rations for adequate feeding. Use of concentrate rations based on cereal grains such as maize, sorghum, millet or root crops as energy feeds and grain legumes such as soybean, peas and groundnuts has led to direct competition with man for the same food resources. This, coupled with the high prices of the commercial feeds necessitates feeding of more non-competitive feedstuffs.

This paper reviews research work done on utilisation of agro-industrial wastes and fodder conservation. The use of these results to formulate a strategy for feeding livestock during the dry season is discussed.

Crop residues

Molasses/Urea
Poultry Litter

The major crops grown in Uganda and their potential by-products are given in Table 2. The estimated crop residue yields based on crop acreages (1986) are shown in Table 3. These residues are a potential feed resource especially during the dry season. However, most of these residues are low in digestibility because of high fibre content and are deficient in nitrogen, minerals and vitamins (Table 4). The cellwalls of low quality roughages are generally high in indigestible fractions of lignin and silica (Jayasuriya, 1986). Efforts to improve performance of animals fed on low quality roughages include physical, chemical and supplementary treatments to increase the nutritive value and digestibility of these roughages.

Senoga (1982) studied the effect of sodium hydroxide treatment on in vitro digestibilities of finger millet and sorghum straws (Table 5). Treatment with 1.5% NaOH for one hour maximized IVDMD for both finger millet and sorghum straw. Improvement in digestibility was higher with finger millet straw than with sorghum straw possibly because of higher initial digestibility of sorghum straw.

The use of alkali treatment was found very expensive and other alternate ways of improving straws are being investigated. Urea treatment is one of the methods being investigated as it is cheaper and easily available. Studies are also underway to assess the nutritive value of fodder legumes - Leucaena spp. and Sesbania spp. These will be used to supplement the low protein content of crop residues to improve their utilisation.

Molasses/Urea

The use of molasses/urea blocks as supplements would help to sustain production, especially during the dry season. Molasses and urea are readily available. Preliminary investigations carried-out at the Makerere University Farm have shown that it is possible to use locally available binders (clay or anthill soil) instead of cement or lime (Table 6). The blocks are being tested for intake before they can be released to farmers.

Poultry Litter

The poultry industry in the country continues to be popular and has grown rapidly (Table 1) due to concerted efforts by both government and the private sector to set up more hatcheries and to import day-old chicks. Most of the commercial poultry farms use the deep litter system with either coffee husks or wood sawdust as litter material. The country produces a lot of coffee husks annually (Table 3) which is a potential feed resource. Coffee husks and wood sawdust are poor quality roughages and are poorly utilised by cattle when included up to 30% of the ration (Ledger and Tillman, 1972). These could be improved by using them as deep litter material for poultry. Poultry litter has been used successfully in feeding ruminant livestock either incorporated in dry rations or ensiled with maize (Battacharya and Taylor, 1975).

Table 1: Livestock and Poultry Statistics, 1981 - 87 ('000)

	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987
Cattle	4745	4821	4871	4993	5000	5200	3905
Sheep	1384	1453	2035	1602	1674	1680	1682
Goats	2671	2804	1979	3091	3246	3300	2503
Pigs	196	206	233	227	238	250	470
Poultry*	176	324	1000	1200	3000	5000	8330

* Total number of birds on commercial farms including chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese.
Source: Ministry of Economic Planning and Development; Background to the Budget, 1988/89

Table 2: Major crops, field residues and by-products

Crop	Field residue	By-Product
Banana	Pseudostem, leaves	Reject fruit, peels
Cassava	leaves	peels
Sweet potato	vines	peels
Coffee	-	husks/pulp
Cotton	stalks	oilseed cake
Groundnut	haulms	oilseed cake/shells
Beans & other legumes	haulms	-
Cereals	stover	bran, cobs
Pineapple	leaves	pulp
Sugarcane	tops	molasses, bagasse

Source: Bareeba and Mugerwa (1987)

Table 3: Estimated crop residue yields in Uganda, in 1986 ('000 tonnes)

Crop	Dry Residue
Finger millet	464
Maize	354
Sorghum	312
Rice	19
Wheat	10
Potatoes	764
Beans	285
Peas	49
Groundnuts	90
Soybeans	7
Simsim	22
Coffee	140

Source: Ministry of Economic Planning and Development: Background to the Budget, 1988/89.

Table 4: Chemical composition of crop residues and agro-industrial by-products.

	DM%	CP %	Cell Wall %
Crop residues:
Banana pseudostem	10	5	35
Banana leaves	20	16	50
Banana peel (dried)	90	8	20
Cassava leaves	30	19	40
Maize stover	90	5	75
Maize cobs	90	3	85
Rice straw	90	3	70
Sugarcane tops	30	5	70
Soybean straw	90	6	55
Groundnut haulms	20	15	40
Sweet potato vines	30	18	20
Fingermillet straw	90	9	60
Sorghum straw	90	6	65
By-Products
Coffee husks	90	9	55
Pineapple pulp	10	5	30
Maize bran	90	10	25
Molasses	25	4	-
Bagasse	50	1.5	85

Source: Anon (1985). Composition and nutritive value of Uganda Feeds. Department of Animal Science, Makerere University

Table 5(a): Effect of NaOH treatment on the chemical composition and in vitro digestibility of fingermillet straw.

Item	% NaOH
(%)	0	1	1.5	2.5
CP	9.1b	8.2b	8.2b	7.1a
ADF	42.6	48.8	46.7	43.0
Ash	10.8a	17.2b	20.7b	25.1b
IVDMD'	47.9a	49.8a	66.1b	65.5b

IVDMD - In vitro DM digestibility
a,b means in the same row with different letters are significantly different (p<0.05)

Source: Senoga (1982)

Table 5(b): Effect of NaOH treatment on the chemical composition and in vitro digestibility of sorghum straw.

Item (%)	% NaOH
	0	1	1.5	2.5
CP	5.7a	6.8b	6.6b	6.2b
ADF	55.8	55.7	51.5	55.5
Ash	5.6a	11.8b	15.4c	16.3c
IVDMD	49.1	53.4	55.6	47.9

IVDMD - in vitro DM digestibility
a,b,c: Means in the same row with different letters are significantly different (p<0.05)

Source: Senoga (1982)

Table 6: Formulae of molasses/urea blocks on trial.

Ingredient	A%	B%
Molasses	50	50
Urea	10	10
Salt	5	5
Maize bran	25	25
Binder	10	10

Binder in A = Clay;
Binder in B = Anthill soil

Table 7: Chemical composition of litter material and poultry litter.

Item (%DM)	Wood Sawdust	Sawdust litter	Coffee husks	Coffee husks litter
CP	1.8	21.1	9.1	21.9
True protein	1.5	13.6	7.5	13.3
ADF	86.9	26.2	52.3	45.6
Ash	2.36	27.7	8.6	20.1
Ca	0.41	5.22	0.56	2.94
P	0.04	2.44	0.26	0.80
K	0.37	1.25	0.27	0.45

Source: Kato, (1985)

Kato (1985) determined the accumulation and yield of broiler litter by 150 broilers with a spacing of 0.1m²/bird in 3 months. Litter DM (kg)/doubled and crude protein (kg) quadrupled in 3 months of litter formation. The results suggested that 100 broilers could produce 1.11 metric tons of poultry litter with 0.31 tons of crude protein in a year. The chemical composition of the litter material and the poultry litter are shown in Table 7. Although the litter has a high nitrogen content, about 40-50% of this is NPN. The poultry litter has a high ash content and high levels of Ca, P and K.

In a feeding trial, maize silages containing 0, 25 and 50% of coffee husks - based poultry litter were fed to weaned calves (Kato, 1985). There was a significantly higher P<0.05) DMI/day on the 50% litter silage compared to the others. (Table 8). However, live weight gain and feed efficiency were not affected. In another feeding trial, the poultry litter was mixed in a dry ration at 0, 15 and 30%. This concentrate mixture was used as a supplement to growing calves that were fed maize silage. Silage DMI and total DMI were not affected by levels of poultry litter in the supplement (Table 9). The daily live weight gains and feed efficiency were not different among the treatments.

The results of this work demonstrated the potential of poultry litter as a feedstuff for ruminants. It can be used in formulating concentrate mixtures by replacing soybean or cottonseed cake or it can be used to enrich maize silage. Ensiling the poultry litter appears to be the most feasible processing method to inhibit potential bacterial pathogens and parasites in animal wastes prior to feeding.

Forage conservation

There is need for forage conservation in the country to bridge the nutrient gap during the dry seasons when pasture is scarce. In addition, intensive methods are the recommended farm practices for dairy farming. Work so far done has been mainly concerned with silage making with little attention to hay making.

Bareeba (1977) studied the ensiling characteristics of maize, maize - amaranthus (1:1) and sorghum silages preserved with molasses (5%) or formalin (0.25%) (Table 10). The low pH values indicated a lactic fermentation in ll silages but formaldehyde tended to reduce the lactic acid content. Kato (1985) studied the fermentation pattern of maize mixed with poultry litter up to 50% in laboratory silos (Table 11). Litter addition at 30% and beyond tended to reduce lactic acid and increased pH and NH₃-% (% total N). However, DM losses were reduced by the 40% and 50% level.

Bareeba (1977) fed the silages to determine the nutritive value and milk producing potential of the silages. Maize silage showed an overall nutritive superiority over other silages as indicated by higher TDN (Table 12). Digestible energy intake from silage was enough for maintenance plus at least 5 kg FCM/day.

Table 8: Animal performance on poultry litter/Maize silage.

Item	Litter % (DM basis) in silage
	0	25	50
Mean liveweight (kg)	77.1	77.5	74.5
DM intake
Kg/day	1.05a	1.29a	1.69a
g/KgLWG0.75/day	39.8a	47.5a	63.3b
Digestibility
DM	40.5a	44.6b	37.5a
OM	46.3	48.5	42.3
LWG (Kg/day)	0.13	0.18	0.17
DMI kg/kgLWG	8.1	7.3	9.7

a,b Means in the same row with different letters are significantly different (P<0.05)
Source: Kato (1985)

Table 9: Performance of growing cows-fed concentrate mixtures containing poultry litter*.

Item	% Litter in ration
	0	15	30
Average liveweight (kg)	157	187	175
Silage DMI (Kg/day)	2.75	2.61	3.30
Total DMI (Kg/day)	5.38	5.11	5.86
Digestibility (%)
DM	73.5	67.6	72.8
CP	81.6	77.4	80.0
LWG (Kg/day)	0.85	0.73	0.92
DMI (kg/kg LUG)	3.53	4.11	3.26

* Animals were fed silage ad lib plus 3 kg/day of the concentrate mixture
Source: Kato (1985)

Table 10: Fermentation pattern and chemical composition of maize and sorghum silages.

Item		Type of Silage
	MM	FM	MAM	MS
pH	4.0	4.10	4.05	4.0
Butyric acid (%DM)	1.23	1.14	1.27	2.38
Lactic acid (%DM)	7.85	3.18	6.74	3.29
Acetic acid (%DM)	5.67	2.47	5.23	2.56
NH3-N (%DM)	0.096	0.045	0.94	0.095
DM Loss (%)	11.04	14.04	13.24	13.06
CP (%)	6.9	6.7	11.6	7.0
ADF (X)	41.3	41.4	39.3	47.4
GE (Kcal/g)	4.25	4.30	4.30	4.35

* MM = molasses-maize; FM = formalhydyde - maize; MAM = molasses - amaranthus/maize; MS = molasses-sorghum

Source: Bareeba (1977)

Table 11: Fermentation pattern and chemical composition of maize silage treated with poultry litter.

Item	Litter % (DM basis) in silage
	0	10	20	30	40	50
pH	3.8a	3.9a	4.1a	4.7b	5.6c	5.8a
Butyric acid (%DM)	0.43a	0.41a	0.88b	1.34c	1.68c	1.33c
Lactic acid (%DM)	4.03a	4.72a	4.14a	2.32b	2.70b	0.76c
Acetic acid (%DM)	4.34	4.36	4.78	4.12	4.62	4.88
NH3-N (% total N)	5.1a	6.3ab	7.7b	7.6b	9.6b	11.1c
DM loss (%)	22.9a	20.6a	20.0a	19.3a	17.7b	16.7b
CP (%)	7.5a	8.7b	9.7bc	10.4c	13.5d	13.7d
ADF (%)	47.6	44.6	46.2	47.1	51.7	51.3

^abc Means in the same row with different letters are significantly different (p<0.05)
Source: Kato (1985)

Table 12: Silage DM intake and milk production potential of maize and sorghum silages.

Item	Type of silage*
	MS	FM	MAM	MS
Silage DMI (kg/day)	10.3	9.2	9.6	9.7
Silage TDN (%)	66.1	64.6	63.2	60.7
Silage TDN Intake (kg/day)	6.8	5.9	6.0	5.9
Excess TDN intake
Overmaintanance energy (kg)	2.64	1.78	1.86	1.75
Estimate milk production from silage (kgFCM/day)	8.0	5.4	5.5	5.3

* Estimates based on US - NRC 1971
MM = molasses-maize; FM = formaldehyde-maize; MAM molasses-amaranthus/maize; MS molasses-sorghum

Source Bareeba (1977)

This work was in agreement with that of Mugerwa et al (1974) working with pasture. It was concluded that silage could be fed in addition to pasture to supplement the low digestible energy and protein intake from pasture especially in the dry season. Enrichment of maize and sorghum silages by ensiling them with high protein forages such as amaranthus or poultry manure was recommended to reduce protein level required in concentrate mixtures.

However, studies have not been done at the farm level to determine the labour requirements and the cost - benefit ratio of using silage. It appears silage making requires a lot more than family labour.

Use of research results

From the review, there is some information on the nutritive potential of crop residues and poultry litter and conservation of forage as silage. This information has been used by farmers for feeding livestock especially during the dry season only to a limited extent. Both the ministries of Agriculture and Animal Industry and Fisheries handle agricultural extension. The extension system has the following problems:

i) Lack of clearly defined and focused agricultural extension policy as evidenced by multiplicity of unco-ordinated extension approaches and use of methods without farmer consideration.

ii) Lack of sufficient training in extension methodology which leads to lack of mission objectives and insufficient sound technical information.

iii) Lack of planning by extension workers resulting in haphazard choice of extension methods and poor teaching and transfer of innovations to farmers.

iv) Budget limitations which lead to limited funds for transportation in the field. There is poor supervision and guidance.

v) Poor research-extension linkage. As such there is lack of information from the field to the headquarters and research stations or vice versa. There is therefore need to document research results in the form of extension bulletins which can be passed on to the farmer.

Conclusion

Research conducted so far has demonstrated the usefulness of crop residues and poultry litter as feedstuffs for ruminant livestock in Uganda. Successful results have been obtained with silage making. Whether this practice can be adopted by farmers will depend on the costs and benefits involved. The use of these research results by farmers has been limited by the weak agricultural extension system. Efforts are underway to strengthen the research-extension linkage through the proposed establishment of an autonomous National Agricultural Research organisation (NARO).

References

Anon, 1985. Composition and nutritive value of Uganda feeds. Department of Animal Science, Makerere University.

Bareeba, F.B. 1977. The ensiling characteristics and nutritive value of maize, amaranthus enriched maize and sorghum silages preserved with either molasses or formaldehyde. M.Sc. (Agric.) Thesis, Makerere University.

Bareeba, F.B. and Mugerwa, J.S. 1987. The potential of agro industrial by-products as ruminant feed in Uganda. Proc. 1st Uganda Pasture Network workshop, 15-17 December, 1987. Makerere University, Printery. Uganda.

Battacharya, A.N. and Taylor, J.C. 1975. Recycling animal waste as a feedstuff, a review. J. Anim. Sci. 41, 1438.

Jayasuriya, M.C.N. 1986. Agro-industrial by-products as ruminant feed. In Nuclear and related techniques for improving animals in harsh environments. IAEA, Vienna, Austria.

Kato, H. 1986. Poultry litter as a vehicle for feeding coffee husks to growing cattle. M.Sc. (Agric.) Thesis, Makerere University.

Ledger, H.P. and Tillman, A.D. 1972. Utilisation of coffee hulls in cattle fattening rations. E.A. Agric. For J. 37, 234

Mugerwa, J.S., Lawrence, M.P. and Christensen, D.A. 1974. Utilisation of urea and molasses for dairy cattle feeding. E.A. Agric. For J. 39, 228.

Ministry of Economic Planning and Development: Background to the Budget, 1988/89. Government Printer, Entebbe, Uganda.

National Academy of Science, NRC 1971. Nutrient requirements of dairy cows. 4th ed. Washington, DC.

Senoga, R. 1982. Effect of sodium hydroxide treatment on the chemical composition and in vitro digestibility of millet and sorghum straws. Special project report, Faculty of Agriculture, Makerere, University.