Comparison of extensive or semi-intensive feeding for Anatolian water buffalo

Degirmencioglu, et al.: Feeding system for Anatolian water buffalo Emir. J. Food Agric ● Vol 27 ● Issue 9 ● 2015 713 The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of semi intensive or extensive feeding on performance and milk yield for AWB. MATERIALS AND METHODS This experiment was conducted at Karaoglan Village located of Mustafakemalpasa in Bursa. The experiment was carried out in 2014 with 12 buffaloes from local family farms. Buffaloes in the experiment were 5 and 6 years old were randomly divided in two groups with equal live body weight, days in milk and milk yield (Table 1). The total experiment lasted 30 days, in which the first two weeks were preliminary for adaptation and in two weeks were collected data for statistical analysis. The animals from first group (control (A) receives roughage and second group (B) control ration plus concentrate feed mixture-(CFM) were fed 700 g CFM per liter milk (191.3 g CP kg DM-1 and 2861 ME (Kcal kg DM-1, Table 2). The offered feeds were assessed to cover the maintenance and production requirements for each animal NRC (2001) recommendations for dairy cattle. On Group A, buffaloes were fed on ad libitum pasture, corn silage (25 kg d-1), alfalfa hay (3 kg d-1) and 0.40 kg of barley hay without CFM. The experimental diet consisted of CFM: roughage (1:3.5 on DM basis). The CFM for group B was offered individually once a day at milking period. For both groups while alfalfa was offered at 6:30 a.m. silage was offered once a day 7:30 p.m. in group level. The buffaloes had ad libitum access to water and pasture. Dry matter intake was measured at the end of the sample collection period by weighing the offered diet and refusals from the previous day. Pasture consumption was not determined because of free pasture. The animals were milked twice a day at 6:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Milk yield was measured daily. Milk samples were collected from each buffalo at the end of the sample collection period. The milk from each buffalo was individually sampled at the delivery site of the firms in the morning. All the samples in a 250 ml of tubes were stored at 5±1 °C before analysis. The fat-corrected milk yield (4 %) was calculated according to Kumlu (1999). The dry matter, organic matter, crude protein, crude fat and ash contents of the diets were estimated according to AOAC (1990). Neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and acid detergent fibre (ADF) were determined using the methods outlined by Robertson and Van Soest (1981). The metabolizable energy value of feeds was calculated from chemical analyses of feed based on the computer software of the National Research Council (NRC) (NRC, 2001). Solids non-fat (SNF), fat, protein and lactose contents of milk were determined using a Milcosan FT-120. The somatic cell count (SCC) was determined with a somacount 150 (Bentley Instruments, chaska, USA). The means of each parameter measured in the milk yield and milk composition were tested by analysis of variance using the SPSS version15.0 Statistical Package (2006) and means were compared using t-test model described by Cochran and Cox (1957): Yijklμ+Ti+Pj+Eijk, where:


INTRODUCTION
The Turkish name for the Anatolian water buffalo (AWB) breeders is Camız.AWB are mostly bred in the Central Black Sea, Marmara (Thrace) and Western Central Anatolia regions of Turkey (Atasever and Erdem, 2008).On Nowadays, their numbers have been decreasing because of reasons such as drying of rivers, having low milk yield and increasing of demand for dairy cow.The number of AWB in Turkey was estimated to be 121.826 in 2014; this corresponds to 0.85 percent of the total cattle population of the country (TUIK, 2014).Total milk production in that year was 18 498 630 tons, 1 113 130 tons being sheep milk, 463 394 tons goat milk, 16 867 419 tons cow milk and 54 687 tons buffalo milk (TUIK, 2014).Milk obtained from buffaloes is partly used locally for the nutritional needs of the owners, and excess milk is sold for yogurt and kaymag making.Nutrition of buffalo in Turkey depends traditionally on grazing of natural pastures.The feeding systems by (Devendra, 1981) divided into following systems: Extensive system, semi-intensive system and very intensive system.In village system which known as extensive system, bufalloes herds obtain their feeding by grazing along water sources.Borghese, (2005) reported that in Turkey, buffaloes were predominantly fed on grazing and wheat bran during summer and stems of maize concentrates during winter time.In grazing animals in extensive rearing can face nutritional unbalance during summer time.They may show decreased milk production (Fedele et al., 1993).Previous studies have reported that semi-intensive feeding improved milk yield in dairy goats (Fedele et al., 1993;Morge 2000;Claps et al., 2003) and dairy ewes (Pulina et al., 2006).In another study, Terzano et al., (2007) observed that extensive feeding systems decreased significantly the body linear measurements of buffaloes.In contrast no differences was found in milk yield and milk composition in other study (Faruque and Hossain;2007).Degirmencioglu et al., (2013) reported that daily milk yield of buffaloes were about 7.1 kg d -1 in the semi-intensive farm.
Milk yield can increase by improving feeding strategy of buffaloes living under village conditions.According to the literature reviews there has not been any published paper on feeding method for AWB.
The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of semi intensive or extensive feeding on performance and milk yield for AWB.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
This experiment was conducted at Karaoglan Village located of Mustafakemalpasa in Bursa.The experiment was carried out in 2014 with 12 buffaloes from local family farms.Buffaloes in the experiment were 5 and 6 years old were randomly divided in two groups with equal live body weight, days in milk and milk yield (Table 1).The total experiment lasted 30 days, in which the first two weeks were preliminary for adaptation and in two weeks were collected data for statistical analysis.The animals from first group (control (A) receives roughage and second group (B) control ration plus concentrate feed mixture-(CFM) were fed 700 g CFM per liter milk (191.3 g CP kg DM -1 and 2861 ME (Kcal kg DM -1 , Table 2).
The offered feeds were assessed to cover the maintenance and production requirements for each animal NRC ( 2001) recommendations for dairy cattle.On Group A, buffaloes were fed on ad libitum pasture, corn silage (25 kg d -1 ), alfalfa hay (3 kg d -1 ) and 0.40 kg of barley hay without CFM.The experimental diet consisted of CFM: roughage (1:3.5 on DM basis).The CFM for group B was offered individually once a day at milking period.For both groups while alfalfa was offered at 6:30 a.m.silage was offered once a day 7:30 p.m. in group level.
The buffaloes had ad libitum access to water and pasture.Dry matter intake was measured at the end of the sample collection period by weighing the offered diet and refusals from the previous day.Pasture consumption was not determined because of free pasture.The animals were milked twice a day at 6:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Milk yield was measured daily.Milk samples were collected from each buffalo at the end of the sample collection period.The milk from each buffalo was individually sampled at the delivery site of the firms in the morning.All the samples in a 250 ml of tubes were stored at 5±1 °C before analysis.The fat-corrected milk yield (4 %) was calculated according to Kumlu (1999).The dry matter, organic matter, crude protein, crude fat and ash contents of the diets were estimated according to AOAC (1990).Neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and acid detergent fibre (ADF) were determined using the methods outlined by Robertson and Van Soest (1981).The metabolizable energy value of feeds was calculated from chemical analyses of feed based on the computer software of the National Research Council (NRC) (NRC, 2001).Solids non-fat (SNF), fat, protein and lactose contents of milk were determined using a Milcosan FT-120.The somatic cell count (SCC) was determined with a somacount 150 (Bentley Instruments, chaska, USA).The means of each parameter measured in the milk yield and milk composition were tested by analysis of variance using the SPSS version15.0Statistical Package ( 2006) and means were compared using t-test model described by Cochran and Cox (1957): Yijkl-μ+Ti+Pj+Eijk, where: Yijk -observation μ -population mean Ti -feeding (extensive and semi-intensive) Pj -animals (j = 1, 2, 3,……23 or 24) Eijk -residual error.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
During the experimental period, the silage DM consumption was 8.23 and 5.72 kg day -1 in A and B groups (P<0.05,Table 3).The consumption in the DM from alfalfa hay in corresponding group was 2.61 and 4.46 kg day -1 (P<0.05).In this study, the average total dry matter intake (TDM) in group B was higher than in group A with 15.56 % (P<0.05;Table 3).The balance of nutrition was also better as a result of adding concentrate feed for the rest of milk yield in group B. As shown in  et al.,(2009).This effect on group A was probably associated with the limited availability of body reserves and reduction in energy intake because of mainly consumption based on roughage (Fedele et al., 1993;Pulina et al., 2006).Similarly Cabiddu et al., (1999) reported that the quantity of energy was important in milk production of goats.However, Faruque and Hossain (2007) have reported that the addition of 1kg of concentrate mixtures does not significantly increase the milk yield in Banglades buffalo but induces a difference of 0.38 kg milk/animal/day between the treated (rice straw and plus concentrate mixture) and extensive (based on rice straw) groups.This effect may be attributed to giving less concentrate feed and using buffalo with 258 days of lactation (late period).In the present study, the ration contained 22 % concentrate (DM basis).The mean milk yield determined on group B was 7.34 kg d -1 (Table 3).This value was similar to 7.10 kg d -1 , the value reported by Degirmencioglu et al., (2013) and higher than 5.5 kg d -1 , the value reported by Şekerden, (2011).A similar trend was also recorded for 4 % fat-corrected milk (4 % FCM).
Yield of 4.0 % FCM was increased (P<0.05) by 23.63 % with semi-intensive feeding (9.31 vs. 7.11 kg d -1 for group B and group A respectively; Table 3).Milk parameters taken from two groups are shown in Table 3.The fat contents of milk were lower in group B than group A. Probably due to more milk production or less forage intake.The difference was statistically significant (P<0.05).In the present study, such reduction for milk fat was determined as 27.77 (%) in group B. Conversely, Faruque and Hossain (2007) showed that milk fat contents were statistically insignificant affected by semi-intensive feeding.The observed response of variation may be related to several factors, such as forage type, forage-to-concentrate ratio, feeding strategy, differences in individual animals and lactation length (Degirmencioglu, 2014).The semi-intensive feeding had no significant effect on the percentages of SNF, protein or SCC in milk.

CONCLUSION
In this study results show that the related table 3 has shown that semi-intensive feeding increased the milk yield, but it reduced the fat percentage in milk without affecting other milk compositions (SNF, Protein and SCC).In addition a consumption of quality roughage and an increasing of CFM according to milk yield level would be useful for buffalo farms located in Mustafakemalpasa region.There is presently a good demand for buffalo milk in the highincome cities of Turkey.Therefore, increasing of buffalo milk with semi-intensive feeding is importance to maintain life of Turkish buffalo in the future.As a future work, the other feeding methods maybe investigated for the AWB and also the economical side can be researched.

Table 2
where " y " represents the estimated milk yield and '' X 1 ''represents Total ME (kcal/kg DM) of feeds consumed, ''R 2 '' represent the correlation degree of these relationship.

Table 3 : Effects of extensive or semi-intensive feeding on DM intake and milk composition in AWB (mean+SE)
Total DM intake values for buffaloes were not added to pasture consumption.4% FCM=4% fat-corrected milk; SNF: Solids-not-fat; SCC: Somatic Cell Count; NS: Non significant; *P value<0.05