Peastraw: an advantageous co-productin dairy goat diets

Resumen

Legume production offers us different co-products to use in animalnutrition.Thenutritivevalueofthelegumestrawishigherthancerealstraw with a slightly higher percentage of crude protein, higherdigestibility,andlowerpercentageofneutraldetergentfibre.Theaimofthisworkwastoreplacecerealstrawbypeastrawandtoanalyseitseffectonmilkyieldandmilkqualityindairygoat.Theexperimentwas carried out during July of 2015 in a commercial farm inMurcia(Spain).200goatswere fedwithcerealstraw (cerealstrawgrouporCSG) and in the diet of 200 goats cereal straw was replaced by peastraw (pea straw group or PSG). Milk yield and its quality wereassessedwithoverallinformationfromeachgroupalongthetrialandwith individual data nine days after the diet was modified. Feedintake was measured through overall information from each group.Considering overall measurements, PSG had a slightly higher milkyield, with a higher percentage of fat, and higher food intake thanCSG. However when the results were analysed with individual datathere was a trend to produce more milk in PSG, but it was notstatistically significant, and no differences were observed in milkquality.Therefore,theuseofpeastrawindietsfordairygoatscouldenhance farm sustainability without affecting milk production, butpossiblemodificationsinmilkquality,suchasfattyacidoraminoacidcompositions,shouldbeassessedinfutureresearches.