Abstract

This trial was carried out to determine effects of organic feeds in comparison to conventional diet on feed intake, digestibility, and nitrogen retention in Korean native goats. Twelve Korean native goats were allotted to treatments in four groups of three goats and then they were housed in separate metabolism cages for 21 days. Treatments included conventional diet (A) as a control group and three organic feed groups (B: organic rice straw, C: organic nee leaves, D: organic mixture of rice straw and tree leaves). The A treatment, conventional diet, consisted of common rice straw and commercial concentrates at a proportion of 60 and 40%, respectively. All ingredients of organic feeds treatments were organically produced-agricultural products without any application of chemical fertilizer and pesticide. Four experimental diets were formulated to have the same ratio of forage to concentrate and similar contents for protein and carbohydrate across treatments and they were offered to goats ad libitum. Feed intake, apparent nutrient digestibility and nitrogen retention were investigated. For chemical compositions of experimental diets, all nutrients except crude ash and ether extract were not significantly different across treatments as we expected. Crude ash content was highest in the A treatment (P<0.05), however, it was not significantly different among organic feeds treatments. Ether extract content was higher (P<0.05) in C and D treatments than in A and B. Even if dry matter intakes for organic feeds treatments were not significantly different among them, they were significantly higher (P<0.05) compared with conventional diet. Fecal excreta were not significantly different across treatments, resulting in significantly higher digestible dry matter (g/day) in treatments of organic feeds (P<0.01). Average daily gain (ADG) and feed efficiency (FE) were more increased (P<0.01) in treatments of organic feeds compared with conventional diet. Digestibilities for most of nutrients except NFC had the same trend as ADG and FE, however, NFC digestibilities for C and D treatments were significantly lower (P<0.01) than those of A and B. Nitrogen intakes for organic feeds treatments were significantly higher (P<0.001) than conventional diet, with no difference among organic feeds treatments. Fecal nitrogen loss was higher (P<0.05) for C and D treatments than for A and B. Retained nitrogen contents were significantly higher (P<0.05) for organic feeds treatments than for conventional diet, but nitrogen retention rate did not show any difference across treatments. The results showed that organic feed supplementation more improved feed intake, digestibility and nitrogen retention in comparison with conventional diet, and thus they could be concluded that organic feeds might contribute to animal performance and a safer production of animal product.

Keywords

• goat;
• organic feed supplementation;
• nutrient digestibility;
• nitrogen;
• retention;
• Red intake