Effect of feeding different forms of zinc on growth performance of male crossbred calves Kachhadia Laxitkumar V.1, Katole Shrikant B.*, Pandya P.R., Patil G.B. Animal Nutrition Research Department, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry 2Department of Nanotechnology, Anand Agricultural University, Anand - 388 110, Gujarat 1Senior Executive, Sumul Dairy, Surat, Guajrat *Correspondence: shrikant@aau.in
Online published on 22 March, 2023. Abstract The experiment was conducted to determine the effect of replacing inorganic zinc with lower level of organic and nano zinc on feed intake, growth performance, FCR and feeding economics of male growing calves. Fifteen male crossbred calves (75%HFX25% Kankrej, 2nd Generation, 93.4±3.19 kg; 810 months) were randomly allocated into three groups (n=5). These calves were fed with basal diet consisting of total mixed ration (TMR) having 50:50 roughage to concentrate ratio with 2 kg of green fodder (Hybrid Napier, cutting every 42-60 days). Along with basal diet experimental groups were provided with additional Zn sources i.e., zinc sulphate (ZnSO4, @40 ppm) in T1, Zn-glycinate (@20 ppm) in T2 and nano ZnO (@10 ppm) in T3 at 50% and 25% level of inorganic Zn supplementation, respectively, for the period of 98 days. All the calves were weighed bi-weekly. Among the groups, dietary Zn supplementation did not affect the feed intake, average daily gain and FCR of the animals significantly (P>0.05) in all the groups receiving different sources and levels of zinc supplementation. Cost per kg weight gain was found to be lower in the nano ZnO supplemented group. It may be concluded that, supplementation of nano ZnO (@10 ppm), Zn-glycinate (@20 ppm) and ZnSO4 (@40 ppm) showed comparable (P>0.05) results on growing crossbred calves without any adverse effect. Top Keywords Crossbred calves, Growth, Nano ZnO, TMR. Top |