EFFECT OF PRE-FERMENTATION, LEVEL OF WHEAT BRAN AND ACCESS OR NO TO MOLASSES CONTAINING 10% UREA ON PERFORMANCE OF ZEBU BULLS FED A SUGAR CANE BASAL DIET 1

Two experiments were carried out in order to compare chopped whole sugar cane fed immediately after chopping, and the same sugar cane fed 24 hr after chopping. In the first experiment (112 days) which was carried out during the rainy season, the other comparison was level of wheat bran (1000 or 500 g/d). However, in the second experiment (63 days) carried out in the dry season, the additional comparison was access or no to a mixture of molasses containing 10% urea. The experiments were carried out with 24 Zebu bulls and the design was a 2 x 2 factorial with two replications (3 bulls per group) in each of the two experiments. There were no significant differences which could be attributed to the affect of pre-fermenting the sugar cane in either part of the experiment (320 vs 291 g.d in the first part; and 414 vs 411 g/d in the second part, for fresh and pre-fermented cane respectively). The results showed no significant differences in the first part of the experiment due to the level of wheat bran (296 vs 314 g/d for 500 and 1000 g/d of wheat bran respectively); however, there was a significant increase due to the molasses/urea both in liveweight gain (557 vs 267 g/d; P <.002) and in conversion (9.95 vs 19.7 kg/kg of growth; P <.001). The respective voluntary intakes were sugar cane 14.2 and molasses .93 kg/d; and sugar cane 15.7 kg/d for the treatment without molasses. It was concluded that pre-fermentation of the sugar cane had no effect on animal performance under the conditions in which this experiment was carried out, but that there was a highly significant improvement when the animals also had access to molasses containing 10% urea.