Animal Feed Research Paper

AASIGNMENT TITLE: FACTORS AFFECTING THE VALUE OF FEED
SUBMITTED TO:
DR.M.HAMAD NADEEM TAHIR
SUBMITTED BY: ASIFA NOREEN 2011-AG-3613 PBG- 7th SEMESTER
COURSE TITLE: BREEDING FOR FORAGE AND FODDER CROPS
COURSE NO: PBG-407

AN INTRODUCTION TO ANIMAL FEED: Animal feed may be defined as,
“Any component of diet that perform some useful function”. Some feed stuff are source of one nutrient and some are of more than one nutrient. In animal feed our basic concern is the feedstuff because it is raw material used to feed the animal that is necessary for their production. A large variety of animal feed is used to feed the animal over the world. More

Maturity at harvest is the major factor that affect the composition and nutritive value of grasses. When there is change in composition of grasses it also affect the digestibility. The change in digestibility depends upon crop species. For example in alfalfa which has completely different growth habit, visual change occur in maturing and blooming. Soil fertility and fertilizer also has major effect on quality of forage and crop plants. If a pasture have mixed crop species there may be a change occur in vegetative composition because different plants behaves in different way in response to fertilizers. For example if nitrogen is applied to field which have mixed crop species then the grasses response will be more as compare to legumes. Nitrogenous fertilizer increases the amount of digestible protein which in turn increases the palatability and dry matter intake. Mineral element concentration also increases with the application of nitrogenous fertilizer. Application of phosphorus also increases palatability when applied alone or mixed with nitrogenous fertilizer. Harvesting and storage also affect the nutritive value of roughages. During the storage hay may lose a large amount of nutritive value if stored in wet conditions. If the hay is stored in dry conditions over many years then there may be a chance of

This factor is at upper limit of quality, all others factors are subtracted from this factor. Evaluation of maturity can be observed by visual observation. The stage of maturity of alfalfa hay can be estimated by observing the no of buds and flower, texture of stem woodiness, and level of leafiness. When cut in bud stage, there will be no flowers and stem will be soft. When flowers present, stem will be large but no seed. It in indicates the early bloom stage. Large stem with few leaves indicates the early bloom stage. Quality of alfalfa cut at same stage of maturity will be different for first, second, third and so on. Clover hay maturity can be determined by its color and blooming. Clover cut in early bloom may have red purplish flower. Brown color heads indicate full bloom and dark brown mature seed indicate the full maturity. Grass hay maturity indicates by no of seed heads. First cutting will have numerous seeds, early head stage is just after the head emergence before the flowering. Late heading is associated with brown seeded that comes out from the glumes