Effect of various treatments on in situ degradability of wheat straw in the rumen of sheep

An experiment was conducted with three adult male rumen fistulated sheep by incubating samples of wheat straw untreated (T1), treated with urea (T2), liquid ammonia (T3) and urine (T4) in the ventral sac of rumen in duplicate for 2, 4, 8, 12, 24, 48 and 72 hr, to determine effect of various treatments on degradation rate of wheat straw in the rumen. The treatment of wheat straw with various nitrogen sources increased the crude protein content from 3.31 per cent in T1 to 9.24, 8.75 and 10.20 per cent in T2, T3 and T4, respectively. A significant (P<0.01) improvement in dry matter, nitrogen and cellulose degradability was noticed due to effect of treatment in all the three (T2, T3 and T4) treatments. Maximum average degradability was observed for dry matter in T3, nitrogen in T2 and cellulose in T4. The effective degradability of dry matter, nitrogen and cellulose was found to be maximum in T3, T4 and T2 groups, respectively at 12, 24 and 48 hrs of incubation. The RDN values of untreated and treated wheat straw were found to be 23.02, 52.91, 55.33 and 59.60 per cent for T1, T2, T3 and T4 treatments respectively. It was concluded that nutrients locked-up in wheat straw could be effectively used in ruminants by applying any of the aforesaid nitrogen sources.