Utilization of Blepharis sindica herbage in sheep feeding: Effect on nutrient utilization, rumen fermentation and plane of nutrition

Abstract

Lack of adequate year-round feed resources is probably the most important factor causing to low animal production in arid and semiarid regions. Under such situation there is need to utilize local forage and pasture species and ecotypes, which have developed characters to cope the drought and to develop appropriate strategies for better use of these feed resources in livestock feeding. Blepharis sindica T. Anders is well adapted to sandy soils and increases nutrient use efficiency with declining soil resources (Mathur 2013). Plant grows luxuriantly from January to March when there is shortage of grazing resources, but due to spine growth on leaf and small stems sheep and goat find it difficult to graze and farmers after harvesting, press it, under the moving vehicles to break the spines before feeding to buffaloes. Therefore Blepharis sindica plants after harvesting, chaffed, dried in shade and added in complete feed blocks for adult sheep to study the feeding value.