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Nitrogen metabolism in indigenous Malawi goats

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

L. Reynolds
Affiliation:
University of Malawi, Bunda College of Agriculture, Box 219, Lilongwe, Malawi

Summary

Four mature castrate Malawi goats, mean live weight 29·66 kg, were offered diets of poor quality Rhodes grass hay, or hay plus a concentrate comprising either maize bran or maize bran-cotton seed cake mixed in varying proportions, so that N intake varied from 4·76 to 20·81 g/day in a series of four metabolism trials.

By extrapolation metabolic faecal N loss was estimated to be 9·94 g/kg faecal D.M. and that of endogenous urinary N to be 0·121 g/kg W0·75. The daily maintenance requirement for nitrogen was shown by a factorial method to be 0·682 gN/kg W0·75, and by use of regression equations to be 0·688 g N/kg W0·75 or 0·314 g apparent digestible N/kg W0·75. The mean daily requirement was 8·8 g N, with a mean apparent digestibility of N of 43·4%, and a true digestibility of 80·0%.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

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