Two dairy goat systems conducted according to the household model were evaluated in terms of income generation. An enterprise budget analysis was performed using data collected from August, 2004, to July, 2005. Farms named A and B were smallholdings and raised Saanem goats intensively. Herd indexes, incomes, taxes, fuel, energy, concentrates, opportunity costs and interest in capital were computed. Net present value and internal rate of return were estimated to appreciate the business appeal in terms of income generation. Herd […]

This work was carried out to evaluate the nutrient digestibility of forages using mobile bags technique in horses. The forages were lucerne (Medicago sativa), peanut (Arachis pintoi), desmodio (Desmodium ovalifolium), stylo (Stylosanthes guianensis), pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan), lime-yellow pea (Macrotyloma axillare) and coastcross (Cynodon dactylon cv. coastcross). A randomized block design was used with seven treatments (feeds) and five blocks (horses). Five crossbreed horses were used with age ranging from 17 to 27 years and average weight of 350 kg. […]

The chemical and fermentative changes of the sugar cane ensiled without or with (control) ground dried ear corn (GDEC) were evaluated during 100 days of storage period. The pH values, buffer capacity (BC), dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), hemicellulose (HM) ammonia nitrogen in relation to the total nitrogen (N-NH3/TN) were evaluated. The experiment was conducted in a complete randomized design as a factorial (2 × 21) scheme with three replications. The […]

Ten Corriedale sheep were evaluated, five males and five females with 52.2 to 87.6 kg of body weight, to evaluate the effect of air velocity (0 and 5 m/s) and temperature (25, 30 and 40ºC) on rectal temperature (TR, ºC), skin temperature (TE, ºC), fleece surface temperature (TV, ºC), temperature inside the fleece (TI, ºC), and fleece thickness (EV, cm) and their relationship with fleece thermal insulation. The results showed that air velocity did not affect the studied traits, suggesting […]

The objective of this work was to test the efficiency of enriched and purified lignin, Lipe®, as external indicator in order to estimate the apparent digestibility of the nutrients in equine diets, compared with the total feces collection and the chromic oxide methods. Six female Mangalarga Marchador with average of two years of age and average weight of 331 kg were used. The diet was alfalfa hay, commercial grain and mineral salt. The experimental period was of 29 days, the […]

The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the effects of levels 0, 100, 200, 300 and 400 kg of nitrogen/ha and cutting ages of 28, 42, 56 and 70 days on the kinetic parameters of ruminal degradation of carbohydrate of the following tropical forages: Setaria grass (Setaria anceps Stapf), Limpo grass (Hemarthria altissima [Poir] Stapf. & Hubbard), California grass (Brachiaria purpurascens [Raddi] Henr.) and Nilo grass (Acroceras macrum Stpaf). The results were submitted to a factor analysis. After reduction […]

This work was carried out to evaluate the fractions of carbohydrates and estimate the apparent digestibility of these nutrients in two digestion assays with horses. In assay 1, five horses were allotted to a complete randomized blocks design and treatments were seven forages hays, alfalfa (Medicago sativa), peanut forage (Arachis pintoi), desmodio (Desmodium ovalifolium), pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan), lime-yellow pea (Macrotyloma axillare), stylo (Stylosanthes guianensis) e coastcross (Cynodon dactylon), evaluated with the mobile nylon bag technique. In assay 2, four […]

A total of 19,770 body weight records of Guzera cattle, measured from birth to 365 days of age and supplied by the Brazilian Zebu Breeders Association, was analyzed with the following objectives of: 1) to compare different residual variances through step functions with 1, 18, 28 and 53 classes and through variance functions with orders ranging from two to five using ordinary polynomials and 2) to estimate covariance functions considering different orders for direct additive genetic effects, animal permanent environmental […]

Five Holstein cows were allotted to a 5 × 5 Latin square design with the objective of evaluating the microbial protein production, using the total excretion of purine derivatives (PD), obtained from spot urine collection, plasma and milk urea and nitrogen (N)-urea. The five treatments contained different forage sources: sugar cane bagasse (CB), tifton hay (TH), elephant grass hay (EH), sorghum silage (SS) and a mixture of sugar cane bagasse + sorghum silage (CBSS). The milk urea (10.98 mg/dL) and […]

The experiment was carried out to evaluate the chemical composition, the in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD) and the fermentative characteristics of elephant grass silage with 15% of coffee hulls, cocoa meal or cassava meal. The addition of co-products at the ensilage moment was performed in the natural matter basis (weight/weight), with ten repetitions per treatment. Silages with coffee hulls and cassava meal showed higher dry matter levels. The silage with cassava meal presented smaller total nitrogen, ether extract and […]