Effect of feeding corn silage in body weight gain and feed intake of kids

• Main Author: Wan Nur Hanisah Wan Min
• Format: Undergraduate Final Project Report
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://discol.umk.edu.my/id/eprint/6413/
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Kelantan

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the effect of feeding corn silage on body weight gain and feed intake of kids. The presence of energy and protein in corn silage were believed can improve the growth of the kids. Corn silage were fermented for 3 weeks. Corn silage was made at the first day of the period and was kept for fermentation process within 3 weeks. Using 6 kids of 6 to7 months, two groups were created where the first group was set as control group whereas the other group were set as treatment group and each group involved 3 kids. Within 5 weeks, control group was fed pellet only and treatment group was fed with corn silage and pellet. The body weight gain was measured in kilogram (kg) and the daily feed intake was recorded in gram (g). The results were analysed using independent T-Test using SPSS 20. For feed intake, there was no significant different between two treatment (P<0.05). The result of the study showed that the body weight gain was not significant in first week of feeding corn silage for both treatment where (P > 0.05). This was supported by previous studies where the body weight gain of livestock when corn silage given to the livestock due to the presence of important nutrients like protein. However, in fifth week of feeding, the body weight gain was significantly difference where (P < 0.05). It was concluded that few feed intake by kids followed by increasing of gaining weight shows that corn silage contain nutrient that help to the growth of kids. It is recommended that the further studies regarding corn silage and the young goats have to be done with larger population in order to improve more production of Katjang goat.