By-Sachin Tripura1, Mitek Tarang2
1Ph.D. scholar, Division of Animal Nutrition, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana
2Ph.D. scholar, Division of Animal Genetics and Breeding, ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izzatnagar, Uttar Pradesh
Introduction:
India has traditionally been vulnerable to natural disasters like floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes and landslides due to its unique geo-climatic conditions. Among various natural calamities, flood is the major devastating natural calamity resulting in heavy loss of vegetation. In Indian subcontinent, drought is predominantly characterized by monsoon failure. Livestock plays a central role in the natural resource-based livelihood of the vast majority of the population especially in developing countries. Livestock are the best insurance against the unpredictable occurrence of nature due to drought, famine and other natural calamities. The major effects of natural disasters are acute shortages of food, feed, fodder and drinking water which adversely affect human and livestock health and nutrition. Severe malnutrition due to natural calamities may depress growth, productive and reproductive performance. Therefore, there is a need to formulate feeding strategy for maintenance of animals to ensure its survival during and after the natural calamity. Feeding strategies during scarcity depend on the specific conditions prevailing in any particular area. In general, the farmer has to make decisions based on economics, knowledge of nutrition, the availability of feed resources and his calculated guess on the length of the natural calamities.
Feeding Strategies during Natural Calamities:
During natural calamities, feed security for animals should be considered as important as food security for humans. The biggest challenge is to averse the acute shortage of feed stuffs in order to avoid the adverse effect of restricted feeding/malnutrition.
The following feeding strategies should be followed without delay:
Complete feed block (CFB):
Complete feed is a system of feeding concentrates and roughages together in blended form. Complete feed block is composed of forage, concentrate and other supplementary nutrients in desired proportions capable to fulfil nutrient requirement of an animal. Minimizing feed cost and labour cost and maximizing production is the need of time and can be achieved by complete feed system. This system is economical and efficient as it allows inclusion of low cost agro industrial byproducts, locally available crop residues and non-conventional feeds with their efficient utilization. The chaffed untreated or urea treated rice straw can be used as basal roughage supplemented with ingredients like mustard cake, rice bran, molasses and binder, with or without hay. Complete feed supplies readymade, balanced, low cost ration for ruminants for the benefit of landless labourers and small farmers. The blocks can be prepared in the surplus season and can be fed during scarcity and or transported easily to the deficit region for feeding of animals to save heavy loss of livestock.
Urea molasses multi-nutrient blocks (UMMBs):
The urea molasses mineral block (UMMB) is a strategic feed supplement for ruminant animals. It is a blend of energy, protein and minerals in the ration of ruminants to enable animals to survive until pasture conditions improve during natural calamities. The UMMB is a convenient and inexpensive method of providing a range of nutrients to the animals. UMMB can improve the utilization of low quality roughages by satisfying the nutrient requirements of the rumen microorganisms, creating a better environment for the fermentation of fibrous material and increasing production of microbial protein and volatile fatty acids. The blocks can be made from a variety of components depending on their local availability, nutritive value, price, existing facilities for their use and their influence on the quality of blocks. UMMB developed by different private and government agencies are very helpful in saving life of animals during scarcity. NDDB developed such licks containing urea 15%, molasses 45%, mineral mixture 15%, cotton seed cake 10%, salt 8%, calcite powder 4% and sodium bentonite 3%. These blocks can easily be stored, transported and distributed as against the common bulky diets available in scarcity.
Urea treatment of straws/stovers:
Natural fermentation of straws/stovers with urea is one of the attractive ways to improve the nutritive value of poor quality crop residues. The straw is moistened to 40% moisture by the addition of 3.5% urea solution. This is fermented by open stacking method for 9 days. The recommended treatment rate is 40 g urea/kg straw with the urea usually being added as a solution in water (40 g urea/l water) which is then sprinkled on the straw. It was observed that more than 85% of the added urea was hydrolyzed by 9th day, thereby eliminating the chances of urea toxicity to animals fed urea treated straw. The 9-day fermented wheat straw or rice straw daily supplemented with mineral mixture and vitamin A (or carotene) could meet both energy and protein requirements for maintenance of adult buffaloes and cows. The method proved to be highly applicable under field conditions. It has universal application in improving the nutritive value of many cereal (wheat, rice, barley, oat) straws, maize stovers, sorghum and pearl millet stalks. The shelf life of the fermented straw is more than one year without any deterioration in the quality. The processed straws/stalks/stovers if used judiciously could save livestock population suffering through the cruel hands (floods/draughts) of nature.
Silage technology for scarcity period:
The process is very simple and involves spraying of urea solution uniformly over the straw and storing it for a specific time period. A large amount of fruit left over is getting waste every day. These fruit by products are generally rich source of soluble carbohydrate containing little amount of protein to facilitate microbial fermentation. Therefore, these byproducts which cause a great disposal problem can be ensiled with paddy straw and poultry droppings. Paddy straw should be chaffed and mixed uniformly with other two components. Such silo should be kept for 4 weeks at least; after that it is ready for feeding of animals.
Ensiling of paddy straw and poultry droppings:
Paddy straw, poultry dropping, green grass and molasses in the ratio of 40:40:10:10 on dry matter basis form very good silage and is highly relished by the animals.
Tree leaves and vegetable leaves: Besides common fodder, shrubs and herbs like pipal, neem, mango, kathal, etc. other non-toxic tree leaves may also be fed to farm animals to supply part of their nutritional requirements. The availability of digestible protein for most of the green tree leaves is limited to 1-2% and energy equivalent to 10-15% of total digestible nutrients, on fresh basis containing about 15% dry matter. They are good source of protein (6-20% CP), calcium (0.5-2.5%) and vitamin A. The vegetable leaves and creepers like cabbage, cauliflower and potato can also be used as animal feed during scarcity; moreover, they are rich source of crude protein and fair source of soluble sugars.
Use of conventional and unconventional feeds:
The different kinds of conventional and unconventional feed stuffs for the preparation of different categories of rations for feeding of flood affected animals been listed below:
1. Crop residue:
Paddy straw constitutes the basal roughage of cattle and buffaloes in different states of India. It is usually stored on wooden or bamboo platform raised over the ground. This is required to minimize spoilage in the heavy rainfall areas. Crop residue available in abundance can be used for the feeding of livestock. As it contains negligible digestible protein and supply little amount of energy but it satisfies the appetite of the animal. However, treated crop residues can form a good maintenance diet for livestock.
2. Sugarcane residue:
After harvesting the sugar cane, the green tops available as a waste can be used for the feeding of cattle and buffaloes. Sugarcane trash mostly used as fuel for the preparation of jaggery, may also be used to supply part of the roughage requirement after chaffing and enriching with more palatable and nutritious feeds. The by-product of sugarcane i.e. sugarcane tops, sugarcane bagasse, molasses can be fed to cattle and buffaloes during scarcity period.
3. Aquatic plants:
Several types of aquatic plants are available in river, pond and other water logging areas may be used for the feeding of farm animals. Although the palatability of most of the aquatic plants is not good but the voluntary intake often exceeds 1 kg dry matter per 100 kg body weight in cattle and buffaloes. Besides supplying protein and energy, they are rich sources of carotenes. So far the common aquatic plants tested for the feeding of farm animals are water hyacinth, aquatic spinach, stalks and leaves of lotus plant (Neumbiull sp.), water chestnut (Trapa natans), hydrilla, pistia and aquatic weeds. They are available readily at most of the places during floods, which can be used in different forms for feeding of animals during scarcity.
Important points for post flood feeding management:
Animals should not be allowed to graze in water logged areas.
Feeds to be protected from fungal contamination and wet feeds to be dried and fed.
Provide clean drinking water to animals.
40-50g of salt per adult animal and 10-20g for small ruminants and calves to be provided daily through feed.
Attempts need to be made to provide ready to eat feed blocks particularly to the pregnant and lactating animals.
Requirement of energy may be met by providing crude molasses.
Newly growing grasses contain high concentration of nitrite and nitrate and they should be fed in small quantity mixed with dry roughages like paddy straw and wheat straw.
Avoid excess feeding of new tree leaves as a sole ration to avoid toxicity and should be incorporated in straws for partial supply of nutrients.
Planning for feeding of flood and drought affected animals:
Keeping in view of flood and drought situations, there is a need to establish feeds and fodder banks at non-affected areas. Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperation has a scheme with the name of Gramin Bhandaran Yojana. Similar programmes may be proposed for feeds and fodder to encourage farmers to contribute in such banks. These banks are necessary to meet the emergency needs of livestock during floods and other natural calamities. Since during natural calamities, priority is to sustain the animals on basic feeding schedule, the co-operative societies, ‘Krishi Vigyan Kendras’, ‘Pashu Palan Kendras’ and NGOs should have the banks that contain densified feed blocks, UMMB or green fodder bales so as to ensure the feed security. The below points needed to be accomplished:
Feed bank: The feed ingredients which become unfit for human consumption can be spared for livestock use & stored in feed banks either in silos or stores after testing it for aflatoxin contents, pesticides and drug residues.
Fodder Banks:
Grasses from periphery of forest area, wastelands and farmlands may be harvested and stored as hay in briquettes and high density stacks. Crop residues of the major cereals like rice and wheat straws, coarse cereals, legumes, haulms left after removing grains from the crops may be stored in these banks. This programme is used to meet the fodder needs in drought prone areas of arid and semi-arid parts of the country.
Conclusion:
The arrival of natural disasters is sudden and devastating to life and property. The natural calamities cause acute shortage of food, feed and drinking water and play havoc with livestock nutrition and health. Feeding management during disaster has to be given utmost care to prevent starvation. The feeding strategies such as UMMB supplementation to roughages, feeding of complete feed blocks, urea treatment of straws, restricted feeding, feeding of hays and other conserved fodder has the capacity to meet the challenge. Unconventional feeds and wastes also have the capacity to mitigate the challenge. Once the situation is under control and feedstuffs availability improves after natural disaster, the affected animals should be given compensatory feeding to re-attain the lost weight and production.
