Medicated urea molasses mineral block and tannin on growth performance, nutrient utilization and nematodosis in goat kids

Indigenous goat kids (20; 3 to 5 months, average body wt-12 kg) were offered ad lib. rice straw and berseem hay (40:60) to assess growth performance and nutrient utilization. Group 1 was fed concentrate mixture (100g/d). Groups 2,3,4 and 5 were supplemented with urea molasses mineral block (UMMB), medicated urea molasses mineral block (Med-UMMB containing fenbendazole @0.5g/kg), tannin (5% of DM) and UMMB plus tannin (5% of DM) respectively. The animals were given trickle infection (200L3/d) of gastrointestinal nematodes (Haemonchus sp. and Cooperia sp. in the dose ratio of 9:1) for consecutive 10 days. Dry matter (DM) intake, total digestible nutrient (TDN) intake, growth performance and nitrogen (N) balance revealed no significance between treatment and control whereas digestible crude protein (DCP) intake, calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) balance for T2, T3 and T5 showed significant improvement over control. Humoral immune response against calf red blood cells (CRBC) was significantly higher in T4 as compared to control. Thus it may be concluded that dietary supplementation of med-UMMB and tannin have no effect on growth performance whereas tannin significantly improved the humoral immune response of kids.