초록
During the monsoon in Bangladesh, the possibility of preserving wet ($700g\;H_2O$) straw by urea (50 g/kg straw DM) with or without polythene cover has been studied. The quality of preserved straw (PS) in terms of colour, smell and fungal infestation were recorded. Nutritive value of the PS was compared to that of a dry straw (DS) in two separate feeding trials on growing bulls (about 290 kg) without (Expt. 1) or with (Expt. 2) concentrate supplements. Over 96% of the wet straw was excellently preserved for over 5 months when covered with polythene in horizontal heaps (of appx. 4 tons). Whereas only 33% of the straw was well preserved in the uncovered (dome shaped) heaps (of approximately 9.5 tons). Each ton of wet straw costed Tk. 1413 and its preservation cost incurred Tk. 345. Urea preservation increased the crude protein content (95 vs. 50 g/kg), dry matter (DM) degradability at all (8, 16, 24, 48, 72 and 96) hours of incubation and at 48 hours, DM degradability (%) were 45 and 25 respetively for the PS and the DS. When fed alone, DM intake (75 vs. $106g/kg\;W^{0.75}/d$), total microbial N yield (27 vs. 54 g/d) and growth rate (-379 vs. 283 g/d) were higher (p < 0.01) in the PS than the DS. Supplementation of concentrate reduced the straw DM intake both in the DS ($51g/kg\;W^{0.75}/d$) and the PS ($958g/kg\;W^{0.75}/d$), but the substitution rate (SR%) was higher in the PS (42) than the DS (27). Higher substitution rate was probably responsible for the reduction in the differences between the DS and PS in their nutrient digestibilities, total microbial N yield (62 vs. 64 g/d) and growth rate(669 vs 339 g/d) when supplemented with concentrate. On 28th day of Expt. 2, feeding PS from one of the polythene covered heaps resulted nervous disorder due to unknown reason(s). Further studies on the effect of size and shape of heap on the preservation quality need to be determined.