Nutritive value of cattle manure vermicast and its effect on in vitro ruminal gas production

Introduction The use of non-conventional feedstuffs isgaining recognition especially in developing countries.Ensiled cattle manure with other feedstuffs has been usedin ruminant feeding. Vermicomposting, a tool for manuremanagement can be employed as a means for manuretreatment with the aim of enhancing nutritive value offorage. The objectives of the study were to determine thenutritive value of cattle manure vermicast (CMV) and toobserve gas production in vitro due to CMV inclusion onrice straw at different proportions.Results Vermicomposting of cattle manure at 2, 4 and6 weeks linearly increased (P.05) significantly crudeprotein and ash, while it linearly decreased (P.05)significantly organic matter, neutral detergent fibre (NDF)and acid detergent fibre. The result showed that, gas productiondecline with an increased in CMV content(P.05). CMV addition to rice straw had no significant(P[0.05) effect on rumen pH and microbial crude proteinproduction in vitro. CMV inclusion reduced dry matterdegradability and increased partitioning factor at 48 h. 5 %inclusion level of CMV gave the highest results while30 % CMV had the least results.Conclusion Vermicomposting of cattle manure increasedits nutritive value, with increase in crude protein contentand decrease in NDF and ADF. Results of in vitro gasproduction and rumen fermentation profiles from thisstudy indicated that inclusion of CMV reduced gas productionand DMD; however, it increased PF48, with nosignificant changes in MCP. Vermicomposting has thepotential of being used as another tool for forage treatmentand addition of CMV could be expected to reduce ruminantgas production, increase ME and microbial proteinsynthesis.