Alfalfa and Oats, Silage Quality, Sheep Feeding

The role of forages and nutrition in achieving high and sustainable livestock productivity is fundamental and imperative.In order to check forage production performance, these are the dry matter, plant height, number of leaves per tiller, growth rate, green forage yield, crude protein and crude fibre which are checked. For attaining better production performance of forages, rain fall, fall dormancy, row spacing, temperature, number of cuttings and photoperiod are checked. Soil composition also plays a vital role. In order to check silage quality, normal levels of pH, lactic acid, acetic acid, propionic acid, butyric acid are required. Elevated level of butyric acid is indication of bad quality. Inoculants can increase silage quality by lowering the values of cellulose and increasing metabolizable energy. (3) In order to feeding silages, they are nutritionally rich and can be successfully fed to sheep to improve animal performance.