رشد گوساله هاي جوان سيستاني تغذيه شده با جيره هاي آغازين مختلف

Growth of young Sistani calves fed different starter rations

In order to determine the effects of different starter rations on growth rate of young Sistani caives, forty day-old calves were assigned randomely to one four calf starter rations (5 male and 5 female/group), and reared in 2 periods. In the first period, all calves received equal amounts of whole milk up to 60 days old. Three isonitrogenous (18% crude protein) and isoenergy (3.08% ME/Kg) starter ration were formulated using of cottonseed meal, soybean meal of fish meal as protein supplement and were offered ad libitum to first, second and third groups, respectively, from 15 to 90 days of age. The fourth group of calves recieved only alfalfa leaves. In second period, all calves were housed in 4 separate pens and fed with a similar ration from 3 to 12 months of age. A completely randomized design with factorial arrangement was carried out to analyse the effects of different starter ration, sex and interaction between ration and sex. The average daily gain for 0-3 , 3-6, 6-9 and 9-12 months of age were 0.206, 0.824, o.901 and 1.015 Kg respectively which were not significantly different between groups. The male calves had higher rate of gain during the period of 6-9, 9-12 and 3-12 months the females. No significant difference were found for milk consumption and feed conversion between groups. Based on the results of this experiment it might be concluded that performance of calves fed starter diets containing cottonseed meal, soybean meal, fish meal and or alfalfa leaves were similar.