Economics of crossbred calves as an effect of watering frequency and feed

Abstract

Farmers often neglect watering and feeding calves because they are reluctant to allocate their limited resources during the calves' non-productive growing phase. The current study was planned and conducted on twenty-four crossbred calves over a period of 98 days to observe the effects of watering frequency and feed on feeding cost and feed efficiency. The calves were randomly assigned to four watering frequency (T1, T2, T3 & T4) and two feeding treatments (F1&F2), a total of eight treatments, on the basis of sex and body weight. Four different watering frequency containing ad lib., once a day, twice a day and thrice a day were offered to T1, T2, T3 and T4 treatment group calves, respectively. Within each watering frequency treatment, half of the calves were offered 50:50 mixture of legume (soyabean) and cereal (wheat) straw (F1) and another half of Jowar hay (F2) as dry roughage. In all treatments, fixed quantity of concentrate and green Hybrid Napier were also offered to calves. Cost of feeding under different treatments was calculated from daily records of daily feed consumption and by considering the procurement cost of feeds and fodders. In respect of watering frequency, feed cost was significantly (p